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A VAGABOND LOVER 


♦ 

CHAPTER I. 

“ IS IT, KISMET ? n 

Piccadilly at midnight ! 

The tide of human life ebbs and flows beneath the glare 
of gaslight and the softer, purer lustre of moon and 
stars ; and under the light of both — unabashed by the 
betrayal of the one, or untouched by the purity of the 
other — the hordes of painted women and painted men 
jostle and crowd the brilliant thoroughfare, a terrible 
satire on all that constitutes the civilized life of a great 
city. 

Vice, frivolity, idleness, the waste of youth, the de- 
basing influence of human passions, the folly and vanity 
and extravagance of miscalled pleasure, here are throned 
and worshipped — the gods of the hour and the century. 

Passing and re-passing, a kaleidoscope of colour ever 
shifting and changing, the faces scanned each other list- 
lessly, or curiously, or scornfully from time to time ; some 
impassive, as befitted citizens of the world, others marked 
by the greed, cruelty, lust, rapacity, weariness or woe df 
sated passions or dominant desires. The din of carriages, 
the tramp of feet, the brazen challenge of shamelessness, 
the witless laughter of fools, the babble of society tossed 
from the frequenters of clubs, the gossip and scandal of 
green-room and boudoir, that smirched the fame of women 
and loyalty of men with as complete an indifference as the 
smoke and blacks of the city itself manifested in its descent 
on “just and unjust” — all these made up an eloquent 
satire on the ways and 'doings of men as the June night 
slowly faded into the past. 


i 


2 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


Two men, sauntering through the crowd, overcoats on 
arm, cigars in mouth, glanced somewhat listlessly at the 
passing faces as they made their way to the regions of 
fashionable Clubland. 

“ Have you heard that Jack Trevanion has returned?” 
asked the younger of the two, a slight, pale, aristocratic- 
looking man — tne Hon. Markham Errol, who was a nephew 
of the Duke of Oldacres, and possessed about the greatest 
amount of debts and the worst reputation of any man in 
London. 

“No; has he really?” answered his companion, who 
was a Colonel of the Guards. “By Jove! that’s odd, 
now I come to think of it. When did he come back ? — 
Are you sure of it ? ” 

“ Quite ; I saw him in the Park this morning. Couldn’t 
be mistaken. There’s no other fellow could pass for Jack 
Trevanion.” 

“ Did you speak ? ” 

“ No ; he was talking to a woman — deuced pretty 
creature she was, too— but I didn’t know her.” 

“ Same old game ! ” laughed Colonel Herbert. “ Gad ! 
what a fellow he was for women, and what running they all 
made for him ! Yet no one knows who he is — where he 
came from — and men call him an adventurer behind his 
back?” 

“ Men ! yes ; but what does it signify what men say of 
him when all the women go mad for a smile or a word ? 
As for being an adventurer — well, that is what Society 
always calls a person of whom it knows nothing, and can 
only speculate as to how he exists.” 

“Trevanion’s mode of existence is rather a mysteiy,” 
said Colonel Herbert. “ Cards and an occasional coup at 
Monte Carlo would account for it, I imagine.” Then he 
glanced quickly up at his companion. “Your cousin, Lad, 
Doris Marchmont, knows him, does she not ? ” he asked, 
with rather an ostentatious pretence of indifference. 

“ Yes,” said Errol, with a frown. 

“ I’m sorry for it. And now she’s a widow, so I 
suppose the acquaintance will be resumed. The seciet of 
his fascination seems to be that there’s nothing he hasn’t 


“IS IT, KISMET? 


8 


done or can’t do, leaving alone the fact that he’s out and 
out the handsomest man to be found in the four capitals 
of fashion.” 

“He certainly is gloriously handsome,” said Errol, 
thoughtfully. “And yet ” 

“ Come, come ! ” laughed his friend, “ that’s a woman’s 
way of damning a rival — acquiescing, yet always with a 
* but ’ or a * yet ’ at the end of the sentence ! ” 

“ Rival ! ” said the other man, hotly ; “ you surely don’t 
suppose that I ever thought, ever cared, ever looked in 
that direction? Lady Doris is not at all my style of 
woman.” 

“ No,” said Colonel Herbert, dryly, “ The women we 
love never are ‘our style.’ But that doesn’t prevent our 
being caught all the same.” 

“ Well, I’m not caught, and don’t intend to be,” said 
Errol, with a slightly heightened colour, as he puffed his 
cigar smoke into the crowd. “ I’ve seen too many of the 
mistakes of matrimony ever to wish to add my name to its 
list of victims. The days when women were content with 
one lover and one husband seem to be over and done with 
Our wives and daughters will never be what our mothers 
and grandmothers were.” 

“ Don’t you think, though, they were a little bit slow — 
scarce a soul above the storeroom and nursery? Admirable 
creatures, no doubt, but decidedly heavy to get on 
with.” 

“ Well, at least they were safe, and a man might trust his 
heart and honour to their keep'ng. Now, it’s either a case 
of wilful blindness, or open scandal. Society’s rotten to the 
core, and we all know it, yet bolster it up with lies and pre- 
tences, because not a soul among us has the moral courage 
to call sin by its real name.” 

Colonel Herbert laughed somewhat ironically. “ My 
young friend you have taken a new departure,” he said. 
“ We shall have you lecturing in the slums, or turning into a 
Salvation Army preacher, or something equally appalling. 
Believe me it’s no mortal use running your head against the 
brick-wall of popular human errors — otherwise the Society 
Chapels would have rid us of all our ‘ pleasant sins ’ long ago. 


4 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


Those sins have always existed in a greater or less degree, 
and they always will. Here and there a solitary voice lifts 
itself against them, and we listen and laugh, or perhaps 
agree, as the mood takes us, but for all that — go on just the 
same. We must. Life’s a treadmill and our feet are 
on the wheel, and we must just turn round with it, or get 
crushed by those behind. Look there,” and he nodded 
in the direction of the gay and brilliant thoroughfare they 
were leaving. “ Do you suppose a single creature of 
the hundreds we have passed enjoys the life he or she 
is pursuing ? But they follow it just the same, day for 
day ; night for night, and they would miss it if they had 
to break it off. Habit is a hard taskmaster who deludes his 
slaves into thinking themselves free. It is the most per- 
nicious form of bondage the earth has ever known. But 
a truce to moralizing ! There’s one thing I wanted 
to ask you with reference to Jack Trevanion ? Have 
you ever been sufficiently independent of the personal 
charm he exercises when with you to criticise the man 
himself ? ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Errol, a little hurriedly, as 
he met the calm grey eyes of his companion. 

“ Exactly what I say. To put it more plainly — have you 
never felt that there was something — unreal — about the 
man ? A want of human feeling, human softness, though 
not of human error. What he says and does, has in 
it and about it an indescribable but palpable difference 
to what most men in similar situations say and do. I 
can’t put it more plainly — it is something rather to be 
felt than described, a thing of intuition, not of recognisable 
existence.” 

“I know,” said the other man slowly, “what you mean. 
I, too, can’t describe it in actual words. It is as if the man 
was— incomplete — is it not ? ” 

“ Exactly ! ” said the Colonel eagerly. “ Yet analyse him 
how you may, you find nothing wanting. His gifts are 
almost genius, his manners are perfect, his courage un- 
doubted, his capabilities almost limitless. His physique 
would make a Hercurles envious, and he possesses that rare 
combination of chivalry and gentleness, strength and reck- 


"IS IT, KISMET?” ft 

lessness, which is so irresistibly attractive to women. Then 
what is it he lacks ? ” 

“Something that is in most men, and that nature has 
omitted in his case,” said the younger man, thoughtfully. 
“ I have felt it as you say, but I cannot describe it in actual 
words.” 

“ Suppose ; ” said Colonel Herbert, dropping his voice 
to graver and more earnest tones. “Suppose we agree, 
you and I, to find out the mystery about him. He is 
deep enough, and close enough, Heaven knows ; but for all 
that, we may contrive to get to the bottom of him, and I 
confess I should like to satisfy myself about the man for my 
own sake.” 

“And I, for the sake of my cousin, Lady Doris,” said 
Errol. “ I should be sorry to see her throw herself away 
on an adventurer — a graceless vagabond who lives by his 
wits, and pays his debts with a chance coup at the gaming 
table.” 

“ Hush ! ” said the other suddenly, giving a warning touch 
to the arm linked within his own. “ There he is, himself, 
Talk of ahem! . . . . ” 

A man standing on the steps of the Orient Club lifted 
his hat slightly as the two friends approached. He did not 
speak, only looked at them, calmly, expectantly, as if 
waiting for them to take the initiative. 

Colonel Herbert extended his hand. “ Why Trevanion,” 
he said. “ Back in the old country once more. Where do 
you hail from this time ? ” 

“South Africa,” answered the man addressed as Tre- 
vanion. 

His voice had a singular charm in its rich, full tones, 
and as he turned and accompanied the two men into the 
vestibule of the Club it was only too evident that their 
praises of his physique had not been exaggerated. He was 
handsome enough to attract attention and admiration 
wherever he appeared. 

Tall, erect, and splendidly proportioned, he carried himself 
with a certain stately, stag-like grace, more like that of 
some son of the desert, some creature of primeval forests 
find free and wind-swept wilds, than the descendant of an 


6 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


effete and stunted civilization to whom has been given the 
honour of producing the “ Masher ” and the “ Dude.” 

That natural grace, born of perfect self-possession, and 
perfect indifference, distinguished every look, motion, and 
gesture. His face was singularly impassive, despite the 
keen brightness of the eyes. They were eyes eminently 
watchful and observant, yet too well schooled for self-betrayal. 
In colour of the darkest, deepest blue, almost approaching 
to violet, they looked black as night from under the shade 
of their dark lashes. 

Taken altogether he was a man difficult to describe. A 
man who would personally confront such description and 
proclaim it inadequate ; a man who would overthrow sup- 
position and speculation by doing or saying something the 
very reverse of what had been expected of him ; a man 
you might study and analyze for years, and yet who would 
still be capable of forcing you to re-adjust your mental lens, 
and begin the task anew. 

Errol and his friend soon found themselves yielding to 
the old charm, sub ligated by the old sense of wonder and 
admiration, as they strolled into the smoking-room of the 
Orient listening to Trevanion’s description of Boerland and 
Zulijland, and inclined to be envious of adventures that 
borrowed life afresh from the graphic powers of their naira- 
tor’s fluent description. 

Man after man joined that circle, and one and all 
seemed subjugated by the charm that radiated from its 
centre. Blase , sated, indifferent as most of them were 
to emotions or sensations, they yet thrilled with some- 
thing more akin to excitement than their usual tepid 
interest allowed ; perhaps sighed a little enviously as they 
looked at that splendid physique, that incarnation of man- 
hood’s strength and grace and beauty, with still the dew of 
youth in the clear, bright eye, and on the smooth brow, 
unscored as yet by touch of Care or Time. There was 
something decidedly contagious in his vitality, and it was 
obvious even if unacknowledged. Just as long as he chose 
or desired, he kept the circle of men around him, awaken- 
ing discussion and leading up to confidences without any 
outward manifestation of curiosity. Then, having learned 


“IS IT, KISMET?** 


1 

all he cared or desired to learn of events that had occupied 
his two years of absence, he relaxed his attention, and 
gradually the men drew off and drifted their several ways, 
some to the card-room, some to study the latest telegrams, 
some to various haunts fashionable, or shady, as the case 
might be. 

Jack Trevanion at last found himself alone in the 
luxurious smoking-room, with its Moorish tables and 
divans. 

He threw himself full length on one of the latter, and 
there lay on the soft pile ot cushions, shading his eyes 
from the light with one hand, the other still held his half- 
smoked cigar, but it hung listlessly by his side. He seemed 
lost in deep thought. 

“ Free ! ” he muttered at last. “ God ! to think of it ! 
.... Free now ! Does she remember, I wonder ? . . . . 
Has she ever thought — ever once in all those long months ? 
.... No. She is too proud, too cold. How could I 
expect her to unbend ? .... If it had been Hilda, 
now ” 

The sound of a step broke across the stillness. He half 
raised himself, and saw one of the attendants approaching 
with a letter on a Moorish salver. 

He took it and glanced at the superscription with a 
slight smile. “ When did this come ? ” he asked. 

“By special messenger, sir,” answered the man, “just a 
few minutes ago.” 

He nodded dismissal, and the man left the room. Once 
more alone, his eyes scanned the contents with an indiffer- 
ence that suddenly broke into inte est. The letter was 
brief, but as characteristic of the writer as its delicate 
perfume, and its dashing irregular characters. 

“ My dear Jack, — 

“ So you are back once more. Connie Belmont 
told me she met you in the Park this morning. Come and 
lunch with me to-morrow, at two. Perhaps if I tell you 
the lovely widow, Lady Doris March mont, will be with me 
also, you will be more disposed to favour my humble 
menage. I’m sorry to say things are no better with us 


A VAGABOND LOVEft. 


8 

than they were two years ago. Is it really two years ? Plow 
time flies and — debt accumulates ! Hoping to see you, for 
the sake of ‘ old days/ 

“ Believe me, 

“ Yours always sincerely, 

“ Hilda St. Maur. 

“ Park Mansions, 

“June 30th.” 

He folded up the missive. Its scent touched him with 
faint and subtle memories — subtle as the woman herself, 
who had loved and wooed him desperately and unsuccess- 
fully before he went into that sudden voluntary exile, 
giving no reason for so doing, and assigning no date for 
return, even to those who considered they had a right to 
ask it. 

“ Kismet,” he said, and laughed softly in the stillness of 
the young day. “ On the very threshold of my return the 
chance is given me. Shall I take it or not ? Is she to be 
won still ? Or am I to know over again the passion and 
longing and despair from which I fled ? How neatly 
Hilda baits the trap ! .... I wonder if she knows I am 
here once more, within sound — sight — touch of her ? . . . . 
Oh, queen of mine ! so fair and cold and proud, how 
strange it seems to think of meeting you again ! But how 
far more strange that, amidst a world of women, lovely, 
aye, and loving too, none should have touched my heart 
or wakened one throb of real feeling save you, and you 
alone ! Will you send me from you now, as you did two 
years ago ? Shall I give you the chance, or myself the 
torture ? Bah ! what fools we are at best ! With all our 
boasted wisdom, with every resource of science and re- 
search. we can’t lift the veil of the future by so much as 
an inch, and thereby save ourselves, or others, the suffer- 
ing and the misery that follow one little mistake on the 
road of Life. If I knew, now, to-night, whether to say 
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Hilda St. Maur, how would it affect 
my future ? ” 

Then he sighed, and slowly rose and paced the room 
with restless, uneven steps. “ If only Mandhar Ram were 


WOMEN— AND WOMEN/' 


9 


here!” he said, involuntarily. “Yet, should I believe 
him if his prophecies went against my own inclinations? 

I believe not No ; better trust to Fate ! 1 will 

go/” 


CHAPTER II. 

“WOMEN — AND WOMEN.” 

How the St. Maurs lived and kept up appearances as they 
did was a mystery to everyone who knew them. 

They occupied a flat sufficiently near the Park to be 
charged an exorbitant rent for every square foot of its 
limited accommodation. Exquisitely designed and ap- 
pointed, it still served as an excuse for such modest 
entertainments as luncheons, dinners, and “little suppers” 
in lieu of balls and “at homes” given by people who 
possessed what Hilda St. Maur designated as “ a whole 
house of their own.” 

To hear her talk, one would have imagined that a house 
was a luxury only to be attained by a favoured few, and 
when any of her numerous acquaintances would tell hei 
that the rent she paid for her flat would have covered 
twice over what a house would have cost, possessed of 
three times its space and convenience, she only shrugged 
her pretty shoulders and declared it was impossible. She 
could not believe It.* But then it was one of her charac- 
teristics never to believe anything she did not wish. Those 
who knew her well enough to know this, never wasted time 
in endeavouring to alter either a whim or an opinion once 
she had expressed them. 

She was a very pretty little woman, with a delicate white 
skin and large dark eyes, and a profusion of artistically- 
coloured red-gold hair. She had charming manners, when 
she liked, seductive and caressing, and without a vestige of 
the malice and selfishness that ruled her heart and nature. 
She was capricious, but never impolitic. She had too 
many debts and too many extravagant tastes to offend 


10 


a Vagabond lover. 


anyone who was useful or generous in the matter of loans, 
or the passports of Society. 

She was virtually only a hanger-on to its fringes, but she 
preferred the fast and risque side of it to that which took its 
cue from what she termed “ the slowest Court that British 
dulness and propriety had ever engendered !” She spent 
her life in a perpetual whirl of excitement, alternating with 
fits of hysterics and despair when duns were more than 
usually pressing, or her husband more than usually unfor- 
tunate in the way of backing racers, for which he had a 
weakness only equalled by a uniformity of ill luck. 

Then there were “ scenes ” that shook the very walls of 
the luxurious flat, and were liberally spiced by marital re- 
criminations. Still they lived together as many other Society 
husbands and wives continue to live, seeing as little of each 
other as they possibly could, and equally averse to the pay- 
ment of any debts as long as credit was obtainable. , 

It wanted a few moments to her usual luncheon hour, 
when Hilda St. Maur came into her pretty drawing-rooms, 
where the daylight was only permitted to filter through softly- 
tinted blinds, in consideration of fashionable complexions. 
She glanced rapidly round. The room opened into a smaller 
one, where she usually sat to “ receive ” visitors, a room 
exquisitely decorated and appointed according to the latest 
tenets of Art. 

It was at present occupied by a woman — a woman whose 
stately and serene grace seemed somehow to rebuke all the 
fantasies and fripperies crowded together in a heterogeneous 
mixture of styles and epochs that had delighted as fantastic a 
mistress. She wore a very simple gown, a rich black silk, 
with soft folds of white China crepe crossing the bust and 
narrowing into the delicate rounded waist. 

But she might have worn cotton or sackcloth, and yet 
looked a picture in either, being one of those fortunately- 
gifted woman (rare indeed) whose clothes owe more to them 
than. they owe to their clothes. Her figure was too perfect for 
dressmakers or tailors to spoil or improve, her face with its 
lovely fair skin and delicate bloom and dark-lashed grey eyes 
and framework of rich fair hair — really fair , not gold or 
saffron, or red — was; if anything a little, too faultless and a 


WOMEN— AND WOMEN. 


11 


little too cold. But the first defect was excusable enough, 
and the second left always the hope of amendment if any- 
one could flatter himself or herself into the belief that 
they had awakened interest or regard. 

She had educated herself into a critical and almost dis- 
contented frame of mind with her century and her surround- 
ings. She was very accomplished, and she rated intellect 
very highly — far more highly than her Society approved of, 
or indeed considered necessary. She had married at eighteen 
to please her family — married enormous wealth, as indeed 
seems the fashion of nineteenth century aristocracy of either 
sex, and now at twenty-five found herself a widow, free and 
unencumbered, an object of envy to all her female friends 
and acquaintances, and the “ coming match ” for all ambi- 
tious lordlings, or enterprising commoners. 

Such was Lady Doris Marchmont, who now rose to meet 
her hostess, receiving embraces and excuses with the same 
serene indifference. 

“ I assure you, my dear Hilda, I have not been waiting 
more than three or four moments,” she said. Her voice 
was low, and very clear and sweet, a contrast to the shrill, 
sharp tones of the restless little woman who poured out now 
an incessant stream of chatter, to which her guest paid very 
little attention. 

“ The men haven’t come yet,” she ended. “ Too bad of 
your cousin, but then he’s always late. As for — but no — 
I won’t tell you who is coming, at least I’ve asked him, only 
he’s not had the grace to send an answer. But I hear 
voices, so it’s all right. Now Doris, prepare for a sur- 
prise.” 

“ Oh, my dear, your surprises ! ” said the beautiful woman, 
her lips curling ever so slightly as she turned away. 

“Don’t scoff at them so contemptuously,” answered 
Hilda St. Maur, with a little malicious laugh, “ you’ll never 
guess who it is.” 

As she spoke the door was thrown open and the pretty 
maid-servant announced two names simultaneously. Just 
for one second, as she caught the name, and saw the tall, 
soldierly figure advancing towards them, Lady Doris’ face 
flushed to the very temples. Then the colour ebbed back, 


12 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


leaving her, if anything, even paler and colder than before. 
She did not move — only the hand that had been trifling 
with the knick-knacks on the ebony table by which she 
stood, pressed suddenly and heavily against it till the 
slender fingers looked bloodless by force of the strong 
pressure put upon them. 

But when, having greeted his enthusiastic hostess, Jack 
Trevanion turned towards that quiet, stately figure, and 
bowed low over the extended hand, neither tremor nor emo- 
tion was visible in her face or voice. 

“ When did you return ? ” she asked him, as she might 
have asked the most casual acquaintance. “ I had no idea 
you were in England.” 

“ I reached London two days ago,” he said. He looked 
at her with something like entreaty in his eyes. His face 
was very pale, his voice shaken and uneven by reason of 
strong feeling. She gave no sign of understanding the plea, 
or pitying the emotion, merely released her hand and turned 
to greet her cousin, but there came a flush to her cheek, a 
light to her eyes, that for long had never warmed or lightened 
them. 

Then luncheon was announced, and she found herself on 
Errol’s arm, following Hilda and Trevanion to the miniature 
dining-room, famous already for its Bohemian entertain- 
ments. 

The table was round, and the party too small for any- 
thing but general conversation. Hilda St. Maur chattered 
away with her usual volubility, and Trevanion seconded 
her conversational efforts with an ease and grace essen- 
tially his own. He had a knack of selecting words at 
once forcible and picturesque, words which made his 
description of seenes, places and people, like so many 
living pictures. 

Gradually the indifference and listlessness vanished from 
Lady Doris’ face as she listened. 

“ How is it you have come back to the tame and spirit- 
less life of towns ? ” she said at last. “ You seem to have 
the true spirit of adventure, the spirit that has given us 
Burnaby, Livingstone, Stanley.” 

For all answer he looked at her. The look made her 


“WOMEN— AND WOMEN.” 


13 


eyes droop suddenly, and her face grow warm. It recalled 
so much — it said so much. Yet she would not allow that 
he had the power to do either. She was not a woman 
quickly touched to any emotion, still less a woman to betray 
it even if experienced. 

“ I returned,” he said, “ partly because I wished — chiefly 
because I had received a summons to do so.” 

Lord Errol looked keenly at him. “ A summons ? ” he 
said questioningly 

“You may call it superstition or not, as you please,” 
went on Trevanion, his bright searching eyes still bent on 
the lovely flushed face opposite to him. “ After all, words 
express very little ; nothing, I always think, at all adequate 
to the power and fervour of thdught, which has to filter 
through them in order to become intelligible. My summons 
was simply a call or demand impressed upon me. To obey 
it I must be in Cornwall to-morrow night.” 

“ Cornwall ? ” Lady Doris said, a little eagerly. “ What 
part of Cornwall ? ” 

“ A very desolate and dreary part, one you are not likely 
to know,” he said. “ It is on the north sea coast, near 
Padstow Point. My home is there, the only home I have 
ever known.” 

“ And was this mysterious summons from your parents 
or relations, then ? ” asked Hilda St. Maur. 

“ I have no parents,” he said quietly, “ only an old uncle, 
who has been protector, and guardian, and everything else 
to me. He is not favourably known in the neighbourhood, 
chiefly because time — means — his life itself, indeed, have 
been entirely given up to the pursuit of science. In his 
youth he lived abroad, first in Germany, later on in Egypt 
and India. I believe he is one of the few Europeans who 
have penetrated into the interior of Tibet. Returning from 
his travels, he brought with him an extraordinary being, who 
early impressed himself upon my mind as one possessed of 
all known and unknown knowledge. He was my educator 
and instructor for many years. These two old men, the 
Oriental and the Englishman, live in a crazy tenement 
called Trevanion Hall, and it is there I am bound. I start 
by the mail train to-night.” 


14 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“ Is Trevanion Hall anywhere near yonr place, Doris ? ” 
asked Hilda St. Maur abruptly. 

“ About two miles distant,” answered Lady Doris, coldly. 
She did not look at Jack Trevanion, but she felt that his 
glance was bent on her, and that his face had warmed into 
sudden eagerness. 

“ Two miles ? ” he said, “ but that is Porhynna. It be- 
longs to Sir Baldwin Treherne.” 

“ I know,” she said quietly. “ But my — I mean Mr. 
Marchmont bought it two years ago. I spent all last 
summer there ; it is a fine old place, but has been sadly 
neglected.” 

Jack Trevanion said no more. He longed to ask her if 
she was coming down there this summer, but he refrained, 
partly lest it should look like the suggestion of his own 
desires, partly because he knew that Hilda and Errol were 
expecting such a question. 

“ You must have had rather a dull life as a youngster,” said 
Errol at length. “ I suppose that’s why you’ve made up 
for it of late years.” 

“I don’t know that my life has been so much more ex- 
citing than — say, your own,” answered Trevanion, coolly. 
“We need none of us stagnate unless we desire. Given 
health and strength and brains I don’t see why any man 
should not make a career for himself, the career that best 
suits him. We are all too liable to let oufselves be coerced 
and guided in our plastic state. Afterwards — well, it is too 
much trouble, or not worth our while, to change the groove 
into which we have been thrust.” 

“Are you advocating wholesale rebellion against parents 
and guardians?” asked Hilda St. Maur laughingly. 
“ Dangerous theories, my dear Jack ! ” 

She always called her male acquaintances by their Chris- 
tian names on as early as possible acquaintance. Some- 
times their wives, or fiancees objected, but she only laughed 
at them if they did, and continued the habit. 

Trevanion had no female guard to object to the saucy 
familiarities she pleased to bestow on him. Only Lady 
Doris looked a little colder and prouder than before, as 
she heard the expression, and Trevanion himself was a 


“WOMEN— AND WOMEN . 1 


15 


little re-sentful of it. But no one ever thought of interfering 
with Hilda St. Maur’s ways and manners. Indeed it would 
have been mere waste of time, temper and patience to 
have done so. She did as she pleased, and everyone gave 
in, and put up with it. 

“I think,” said Trevanion, in answer to her remarks, 
“ that when the world is more enlightened, it will also learn 
how little right the fact or — accident — of parentage really 
gives us. Who knows the real nature of the beings they 
claim as their own? Apart from the sentiment attached to 
relationship it has very little to recommend it. In trouble, 
in sorrow, in difficulty, in need — in every trial, in every temp- 
tation that visits us — is it not a personal and independent 
warfare of ourselves against the opponent, whatever be its 
nature ? 

“ But sympathy and affection do help to ease the 
burden — to make the warfare lighter,” said Lady Doris 
gravely. 

“Pardon me,” he said, “we fancy they do. We think, 
when we rush to the bed of sickness or of death, to the 
prison or the hospital, we are really assisting to comfort and 
console the mourner, or the sufferer, or the criminal ; but in 
the depths of that suffering and that sin-stained nature it 
knows it is alone, that neither love nor sympathy can really 
reach it. By itself it stands, struggles, resists, or — falls. 
Mind you, I am not talking according to the formal or ac- 
cepted rule — the laws of life and society — but of that which 
is within — the real self, a sealed letter to even our nearest 
and dearest.” 

“ My dear Jack,” cried Hilda St. Maur, clasping her 
pretty hands together in affected horror, “ what has come 
over you ? Why, you are as bad as a clergyman ! ” 

“ Worse, I think,” said Errol, drily. “ You cannot 
accuse them of giving you subject for thought. They deal 
with safe generalities in their ten minutes’ homily, and 
make up for their cowardice in the matter of plain speaking, 
by extra zeal and devotion in all matters of ritual, and 
service, and church millinery. What a world it is ! ” 

“A very good world — in its way. It would be admirable 
but for debts,” laughed Hild^ St. Maur. “ Come, you are 


16 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


spoiling my luncheon with your grave faces. Let us adjourn 
to coffee and cigarettes in my special ‘ den/ And for 
goodness’ sake drop philosophy. I never could stand it — 
my head’s too weak 1 ” 


CHAPTER III. 

“who loves — REMEMBERS.* 

“ So you go down to Cornwall to-night ? ” said Lady Doris, 
quietly. 

She was leaning back in one of the low, luxurious 
fauteils which were scattered about in Hilda St. Maur’s 
“den,” /.<?., the Turkish smoking-room which she and a few 
of her special favourites (male) considered the cosiest and 
prettiest room in the whole flat. 

Lady Doris was not smoking, the other three were. Jack 
Trevanion had thrown himself down on a pile of cushions 
near his divinity. His eyes spoke very eloquently — things 
his lips dared not say — yet. 

“Yes, to-night,” he answered her. “I wonder,” he 
added, sinking his voice so that it only reached her ears, 
“ if you will favour Porhynna with a visit this summer ? ” 

“ I never decide my plans long in advance,” she said, 
coldly. “ Half the charm of life lies in not knowing what 
one is going to do, too long before one actually does it.” 

“ More than half the charm of life,” he said, somewhat 
bitterly, “ Ires in possessing the means of satisfying such 
caprices.” 

“ Perhaps , ” she said, with the same indifference to subject 
and to speaker that had already ruffled him. Few things 
are more trying to an impetuous, passionate temperament 
than that apparently unmoved serenity which only a very 
cold or a very proud nature can present. It had often 
stung and irritated Jack Trevanion to madness in other 
days — days when he had not learnt as yet to school and 
control his feelings. It brought back now some of the old 
sense of anger and helplessness as he looked at the beauti- 
ful, calm face by his side. 


WHO LOVES-REMEMBERS.’ 


17 


“Lady Doris,” he said, with a suppressed fierceness in 
his voice that she recognized as an echo of the past, “ I wish 
to Heaven your world and your life had left you less per- 
fect and more womanly. Does nothing ever move you — 
interest you, please you ? ” 

“Very little, I confess,” -she said, and looked quietly at 
him. Not a flush, not a tremor of eyelid or lip betrayed 
whatever she might be feeling. “ I am not at all an emo- 
tional person,” she went on, presently. 

“I think,” he said, with a sudden ring of passion in his 
voice, “ you need not tell me — that. I learnt it only too well, 
two years ago.” 

She coloured ever so faintly. “Two years,” she said, 
“ is a long time to treasure the memory of a few harsh 
words.” 

“ God knows they were harsh ! ” he said, bitterly. “ But 
I deserved them. Perhaps that is just what gave the 
sharpness to their sting. I — I suppose I ought to say I 
am sorry for your loss ! ” he went on, rapidly ; “ but I am 
not hypocrite enough to do so. I told you once I had a 
faithful memory.” 

<; Is it necessary, do you think, to recall the past?” she 
said, as coldly as ever. “ It was neither so pleasant nor 
so desirable that we need do so, and as for the time that 
has elapsed since — since ” 

“Since you banished me,” he interrupted, quickly. 

“ You flatter me. I had no such power.” 

“ You had power enough ! ” he said, with suppressed 
passion, “ to turn me into a devil from whom you or any 
woman might have shrunk ! Proud and cold as you are, 
Lady Doris, I determined that you should hear — that. Not 
that. the fact would hurt you, or give you one moment’s 
regret.” 

“No she said, “because it is the foolish cant of all 
disappointed passions and shipwrecked vanity. What is 
the value of a nature that cannot withstand temptations — 
where the superior strength and fortitude of a man who 
lets himself slide downhill as rapidly as vice permits him, 
and excuses the folly and the sin and the shame of his 
wasted years by throwing the blame at a woman’s feet ? Do 

2 


18 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


you think we have nothing to suffer at your hands — that it 
costs us so little to act to our world, to hide shame and 
agony and humiliation ? And yet we, who have the harder 
fight of the two, rarely turn round and accuse you of 
sending us to ‘ the devil/ as you so forcibly expressed it 
just now.” 

“ Your passions compared to ours are as water to wine. 
Your feelings are always under restraint and control by 
very reason of your nature and your sex,” he said, bitterly. 
“ I — I could tell you stories of men’s love, men’s faithful- 
ness, Lady Doris, before which all the vaunted tenderness 
and fidelity of women might pale. Tales I have heard by 
camp-fires, on the wide prairies, in the face of death and 
danger, in those hours when men learn how small and 
poor a thing life is — tales of hearts broken by > a woman’s 
light smile or careless word, scarred and marked to their 
lives’ end by a blow she has dealt with her small cruel 
hand. But you would not care — you are not the type of 
woman to pity, or pardon — or love.” 

The beautiful proud face turned very pale. 

“ You should know the ‘ type,’ ” she said, ironically. 
“ Few men have had greater or more varied opportunities 
of studying my sex than yourself.” 

“ What are you two discussing so gravely ? ” chimed in 
Hilda St. Maur’s ringing voice at this juncture. “ Come, 
Jack, no confidences ! They’re wasted on Doris, I assure 
you. She doesn’t possess a single feminine weakness. I 
wish I could convince her that she would be much happier 
if she did. Emotions and sensations are the salt of life. 
It is all nonsense for a woman to pretend she doesn’t think 
so. I don’t say they’re safe for us ; but there’s no doubt 
they’re worth living for.” 

“ As you have proved, no doubt,” said Jack Trevanion, 
rising from his seat, and sauntering over to the divan by her 
side. 

He bent his handsome head and whispered something 
/ in her ear, at which she coloured and then laughed. Lady 
Doris’ face never changed its serene indifference of expres- 
sion. It was not her way to betray pique or jealousy, 
whatever she might feel. 


WHO LOVES— REMEMBERS.’ 


19 


It’s all nonsense to pretend women are so much better 
than men,” rattled on Hilda St. Maur. “Of course, poets 
and romancers say so, and of course it sounds pretty, and 
has its root and origin in a time when women were little 
better than slaves, and naturally became docile and meek 
and patient. Thank Heaven, we’ve changed all that ; but 
our natures — well, I believe in the eternel feminin : what 
we wanted we’ve always had, what we’ve chosen to do we’ve 
always done, and so we always shall.” 

“ You speak as if caprice were the sole law of woman’s 
nature,” said Lady Doris, coldly. 

“So it is,” said Mrs. St. Maur. “Here and there, I 
grant, are exceptions, who may be reasonable, but they’re 
never agreeable — they don’t make the Helens, and Cleo 
' patras, and Marie Stuarts of the world ; and they’re not 
the type men prefer. Am I not right, Jack ? ” 

She laid her hand on his knee and looked up in his 
face with her bold bright eyes. 

Lady Doris felt as if a cold air had swept over her. The 
familiarity incensed and disgusted her, and yet, she asked 
herself, what right had she to feel either annoyance or 
disgust ? 

She and Jack Trevanion had parted in bitter anger two 
years ago. He had dared to say to her words that no man 
living had ever had the audacity to speak. He had wooed 
her boldly, passionately, recklessly, as most women love to 
be wooed, deny it as they may ; and she had sent him from 
her side scourged and humiliated by the coldest and most 
cruel words at her command. 

If he had gone to his death she would not have cared, so 
greatly had he outraged a pride hitherto invincible, so 
strangely had he moved a heart hitherto untouched to any 
emotion of softness, unaw r akened to any throb of passion ; 
unstirred, as any deep lake’s waters, by the faintest breath 
of that soft and subtle trouble which alone love breathes 
over the current of human life. 

He had done all this, he had let loose a very whirlwind 
of passions and emotions into her well-balanced, calmly 
organized life ; he had wooed her ardently, regardless of 
the world’s remarks, regardless of conventionalities, of the 

?* 


20 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


tie that bound her, of the society she ruled and graced ; 
full only of his own wild love for her — the love that had 
ruled and well-nigh wrecked his life, that had indeed 
turned him into a devil often, for very pain and agony and 
humiliation of its impossible desires. 

She thought of this now — thought and wondered with a 
sudden ache of heart what really these two years had been 
like ? 

It is strange that, however women may treat a man, 
they still like to feel they have some control over his life. 
They never quite wish their influence to pass into power- 
lessness. That sense of holding the reins even if the curb 
is slackened, is still a sense that has something in it of 
pride and satisfaction. They resent the violent wrenching 
of both from their hands, even while they pretend to 
relinquish them. 

Something of this the Lady Doris Marchmont felt now, 
though she would have suffered any torture sooner than 
acknowledge it ; though she sat there, calm, unmoved, 
talking but little, smiling less, yet keenly alive to every 
word and look and gesture that marked the intimacy 
between the lover she had lost, and the friend she 
despised. 

“ If he can care for her,” she thought, with sudden 
bitterness, and told herself they were well matched — an 
adventurer, a reckless unprincipled spendthrift, to whom 
women’s reputations had always been as thistledown to 
the winds of Heaven — and a woman, fast, extravagant, 
spoilt by her soe’ety and her age, which has taken to 
deifying the “ rauid matron,” and to laugh to scorn the 
Griseldas and Yseultes that here and there bloom, lily- 
Lke, in the gardens and forcing houses of fashionable life. 
But though she felt bitter and angered, she was conscious of 
a pain that at once surprised and hurt her. It was alto- 
gether new and strange to her serene and self-contained 
nature. A nature lofty and grand, even in its weakness — a 
nature that had nothing mean or treacherous about it, and 
always had tried to believe the best of those she loved 
— even if not too ready at forgiving the worst. 

It is only small souls that cram all others into their own 


“WHO LOVES— REMEMBERS.’ 


21 


narrow measurements. Great ones always believe the 
best, and are more trustful, even if more just. 

T fact of that sudden wrench, the abruptness and the 
storminess with which Jack Trevanion had taken himself out 
of her life, had made her think of him a great deal more 
than anything else he might have done. A year afterwards 
she was free. Free from a tie she had accepted be- 
cause she had believed it her duty to aid the broken 
fortunes of her house — a tie which had given her, in her 
youth and beauty, to a man old enough to be her father — 
wealthy enough to outbid all titled candidates for her hand. 
A man whose name she had borne and respected, and to 
whom she had been loyal in word and deed — all the more 
so because of the utter absence of feeling on her side, and 
the unceasing humiliation which the greatness and devotion 
of an unreturned love caused her every hour of her brief 
wedded life. 

Two years, and now the same voice echoed in her ears ; 
the same eyes — bold, passionate, commanding — had looked 
back for one brief moment to hers. Unrevealing — almost 
cold as they were to others — they were eloquent enough to 
her. 

She sat there quiet — almost to listlessness, but she felt 
every gradation of tone in the remembered voice, she grew 
hot and cold with the memories* that started back to life, and 
confronted her with fresh possibilities of fresh pain. She had 
schooled herself into believing the past as utterly dead as 
the dead leaves of that sad autumn time. She could not 
understand how they should have so vivid and quick a 
resurrection. 

Notin any single respect was Jack Trevanion like the 
hero of her fancies. She knew him to be wild, reckless, 
improvident, and, the World said, immoral. She could not 
remember any time when she heard of an unselfish action, 
a noble impulse, a deed of true manliness, of which he had 
been the hero. 

Few men called him friend, and many women knew him 
as an enemy. Had she not also felt what her cousin and 
Colonel Herbert felt, that there was something lacking in 
him ; something deep, something real ; something that could 


22 


A VAGABOND LOVER 


speak of human impulse and sympathy, and which his 
lightness and recklessness — his selfish indifference and 
utter disregard of all laws, moral or divine — seemed to 
declare wanting. 

But then his face. The charm of it, the beauty of it, 
the fascination of it, made all women blind and forgetful, 
and disarmed most men’s criticism. Who could look on 
it and not pardon errors that it was in the very nature of 
such fascination to provoke ? When men courted him and 
women threw themselves, almost unasked, at his feet, what 
was to be expected ? She was quite woman of the world 
enough to know that men are more easily tempted and 
less to be blamed for yielding to temptations, than women 
are But yet — it is not always easy to excuse them once 
one loves. That little word makes all the difference. 

It would not have caused Lady Doris a pang of uneasiness 
or regret if her cousin Errol had flirted with^Hilda St. Maur 
from one month’s end to another. Errol loved her yet, 
anri had loved her very dearly and deeply since his boy- 
hood, but then she did not want his love, or return it in 
any way but that of purely cousinly regard, and Jack 
Trevanion 

She drew her breath short there, and checked the current 
of thought which seemed inclined to get headstrong and 
run av r ay into dangerous channels. She had been too well 
tutored by the world, and assisted by the natural pride and 
coldness of her own temperament, to betray to either the 
man or woman who were torturing her that she felt one 
of the many stings they inflicted. 

She knew that Mrs. St. Maur was considered very 
fascinating, and that she was also not more scrupulous than 
the generality of mondines. Yet it hurt her a little to see 
that show of interest and devotion, to watch the handsome 
head bend down towards the mischievous riante face of the 
woman she knew to be every way unworthy to be her 
rival. She was not sorry when her carriage was announced, 
and she could put an end to a scene both painful and dis- 
tasteful to her sense of dignity and self-respect. 

As her hand rested for a moment in that of Trevanion, 
he looked at her with something of shame and contrition 


A CURIOUS EXPERIMENT. 


23 


in his eyes. “ Forgive me,” they seemed to say, and wit^ 
a sudden glad revulsion of feeling, she let her own speak 
back, even more frankly and eloquently than she was aware 
of. “ I forgive,” they said, and to Jack Trevanion it sud- 
denly seemed as if all the world grew radiant, and life glad 
and purposeful, and the clouds of shame and sorrow rolled 
away as a scroll that is folded and done with. 

So irrational a thing is Love ! 


CHAPTER IV. 

A CURIOUS EXPERIMENT. 

It was drawing near to sunset when Trevanion drove up to 
the old Hall, which, as he had said, was the only home he 
had ever known. 

His birth had always seemed shrouded in mystery. His 
uncle would tell him nothing, save that his parents were 
dead. Not that he possessed any of those romantic or 
sentimental feelings usually supposed to belong to orphans. 
Ilis boyhood had been lonely and companionless ; his 
youth wild, reckless and scored by adventures. His man- 
hood, for he was now in his twenty-ninth year, marked 
and seared by the hot blast of an irrational and devouring 
passion. 

Only too well he knew that he was no fitting match, 
either by birth, fortune, or deserts, for the Lady Doris 
Marchmont. ' But where yet is the man or woman who 
could be deterred from loving by the fact that such love 
was both hopeless and irrational ? 

He had not been far wrong when he told the fair, proud 
woman that she had made a devil of him. Truly, if reck- 
lessness of life and limb, deeds of daring that set caution 
and death alike at defiance — fitful passions that had spared 
no woman, so only they might for one hour banish the 
torturing memory of one — pursuits unholy enough for 
fiends, into which he had plunged for their mental exhilara- 


24 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


tion, if these and such as these deeds did not deserve the 
name he himself gave them, it would be difficult to say 
what did. 

And now, as the stormy sunset broke the dark horizon 
line, and shimmered under heavy clouds over the stormy 
sea, he stood under the porch of his boyhood’s home, and 
looked at it with a sudden overmastering sense of sorrow 
and despair. 

The old Hall stood on an eminence that commanded a 
full view of the wild ocean, rolling in unbroken swell to 
dash itself in senseless rage against the iron-bound coast. 
Its ceaseless roar filled the air as with an echo of undying 
thunder. The piled-up billows rolled inland after every storm 
as if bent on destroying the sharp reefs and rocks that only 
broke their force into the harmless powder of per- 
petual spray. 

Altogether, even in summer-time, it was a bleak and 
dreary spot. It looked dreary now, under the crimson 
glow of the angry sun, and the noise of the rising wind 
came keen and sharp to Jack Trevanion’s ears as he paused 
there in the grey stone weather-beaten porch, ere entering 
the house that for seven years had not received him as 
guest or inmate. 

Keenly alive to all physical sensations, and easily touched 
to pleasure or despondency, Trevanion was conscious of a 
certain chilling reluctant thrill that seemed to run through 
every vein, and arrest his steps even as they sought the 
threshold. 

The door was only on the latch ; it yielded at once to his 
touch, and he entered the dark and gloomy hall. 

Throwing down his overcoat and hat, and the small valise 
which was all his baggage, he took his way across the hall, 
and stopped at a door on the left-hand side, from under 
which came a faint stream of light. 

He knocked at the door, and it instantly opened. 

He stepped into the room and confronted its* two 
occupants. Both were men. One was very old, and 
feeble of frame, cowering over a small peat fire ; the other 
was a man of lofty stature and pure Oriental type. His 
eyes, dark and gleaming as jewels, fastened themselves on 


A CURIOUS EXPERIMENT. 


the face of the intruder, and a strange look of relief leaped 
into their bright and glittering depths. 

Neither of the two men offered any formal greeting, but 
as Trevanion stood there, it suddenly seemed to him that 
all the room grew dark, that an overpowering sense of 
weakness and faintness stole over him, -numbing every 
muscle, chilling the blood in his veins, deadening the beat 
of heart and pulse. Feebly, gropingly, as a blind man 
might have done, he stretched out his hands, and then a 
thick black darkness, dense and vaporous, seemed to over- 
whelm his -senses — he was only conscious of utter silence, 
stillness, cessation. 

As he staggered forward the Oriental caught him, and 
laid him on a low, broad divan before the smouldering 
fire. 

‘•Not a moment too soon,” he said, peering anxiously 
into the white face that now looked curiously aged and 
shrunk. 

“ Quick, Hartman — the phial. Do you hear ? ” 

The old man rose and tottered forward. He, too, peered 
into that altered face with a curious intenttiess — more of the 
curiosity that a man would have given to some strange and 
unperfected experiment, than that natural interest or 
regard displayed by human life to human life. 

“ Do you not hear, man ? ” said the Oriental im- 
patiently. “What use to gaze at him? You have seen 
him like this before ! Quick, I tell you, or it will be 
too late !” 

Then the old man moved away to the further end of the 
vast dim chamber, and presently returned with a small 
phial, containing a clear and colourless liquid. 

It sparkled and flashed like a diamond as the light 
caught it, and gently, drop by drop, the Oriental poured 
it down the throat of the unconscious man. The muscles 
relaxed, the heart began to pulsate, the hue of life came 
back to face and lips ; he opened his eyes and looked up 
at the dark inscrutable face bent over his own. 

“ Is it you, Mandhar Ram ? ” he said dreamily. 

Then he turned, his eyes closed, his breathing grew soft 
and regular as that of a sleeping child, and even as a child 


26 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


might have done, he sighed faintly and drowsily, and fell 

into a deep and profound sleep. 

****** 

It was a strange chamber in which Trevanion awakened 
some two hours later. A long, low room, filled with curious 
machinery, and around whose walls were ranged numerous 
specimens of the savage world. Strange and hideous animals, 
rows of gigantic birds and curious reptiles, snakes, monkeys, 
insects — the pride and labour of a naturalist’s collection — 
all had their place here. The room was lit by a large globe 
of thick- glass, suspended from the ceiling, which contained 
the bright effulgent light of electricity. The soft, moon- 
like rays fell on the two strange and intent faces, and on 
the bright and excited eyes of the. younger man as he sat up 
on the divan and gazed enquiringly from one to the 
other. 

“ Have I been asleep ? ” he asked, and rubbed his eyes in 
a bewildered, doubtful way, gazing at the grisly vista of a 
dumb and dead creation, and from thence to the re- 
membered chaos of retorts, and engines, and machinery, 
the chemical appliances, microscopes, crucibles, electric 
batteries — all the paraphernalia of physical science, which for 
many years he had neither cared nor thought of pursuing. 
It had engrossed him deeply once, but a life of excitement 
and pleasure had superseded that old allurement, and he 
had discovered that animate matter possessed greater 
charms than inanimate. 

“ Yes,” said the deep musical voice of the Oriental, “you 
have been asleep. You arrived here spent — exhausted. 
Sleep has restored you, has it not ? ” 

“ I feel well enough,” he said, rising from the couch and 
approaching the old man, who had resumed his seat by the 
fire. “ How are you, uncle Hartman ? ” he continued, 
and laid his warm young hand on the shrivelled, withered 
claws that were trembling before the dull glow in the grate, 
in a vain effort to extract some warmth therefrom. 

“ I am well enough, my boy,” said the old man. “ Well 
enough, but age is beginning to tell upon me, you see. The 
spirit is young and strong, but the frame — ah, the frame — 
that wears out. Yes, Jack, that wears out.” 


A CURIOUS EXPERIMENT. 


27 


“And you, Mandhar Ram — how are you?” said 
Trevanion lightly. « Your frame, at least, doesn’t look like 
wearing out. You seem not a day older than when I parted 
from you, and that is — let me see — five — six ” 

“ Seven years ago,” said that deep, thrilling voice. “ A 
short space measured by achievements. I daresay it has 
been long enough to you.” 

“Yes,” said the young man, somewhat wearily. “When 
Time has no resource save to be shortened, poisoned, killed, 
it contrives to drag along at a pretty slow rate.” 

• He glanced round the room somewhat curiously. 

“ Any new discoveries ? ” he asked. “ The philosopher’s 
stone — the alchemist’s secret — the elixor vita — eh ? ” 

“ Science has depths which one brief life of individual 
research can never reach,” said Mandhar Ram gravely. 
“ Again and again and again must we go to that well, only 
to find depths still deeper — mysteries more profound.” 

“You still believe in the paramount importance of 
electric force, I suppose ? ” 

“As much as I believe that I exist,” said the Oriental 
gravely. “ There is not an atom in nature but contains 
that force, either in a latent or potential degree. It is the 
source and secret of life, in whatever form it manifests 
itself. Heat, light, magnetism, attraction, gravitation, are 
all the products of electrical energy — call it ‘force’ or 
‘generative power,’ as you please, or as modern science 
decrees.” 

“ You say the source and secret of life,” observed the 
young man gravely. “ Granting you have discovered that , 
what hinders you from creating life, in some shape, your- 
self?” 

“Ah — what?” said the Oriental grimly. “Truly not 
the will or the power, since I have wrested the secrets of 
both from their prison-house of mystery.” 

The old man lifted his head and looked searchingly from 
one face to the other. 

“ Why did you ask that question ? ” he said suddenly. 

Trevanion shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Why ? pooh ! How can I tell ? Why does one ask 
anything; why does one think, act, move, love, hate? Tel) 


28 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


me that, you two who are so wise. I would prefer to know 
the cause of an action, rather than suffer its results.” 

“ Doubtless,” said Mandhar Ram gravely. “ But with 
your nature, the knowledge of the cause or effect of any 
action would not deter you from its performance.” 

“ How can you tell?” demanded Trevanion haughtily. 
“ Do you know me so well that you answer for me better 
than I could for myself? ” 

“ Who should know you if I do not ? ” said the Oriental, 
with a strange, mysterious smile. “ Have I not foretold 
your actions again and again ? Have I not warned you — 
counselled you, aided you ? Is there a deed of your life 
unknown to me — a thought of your heart that I cannot 
fathom. We two stand almost as creator and created might 
stand. I have given you permission to test my powers 
often enough. Tell me, have I ever erred in stating what 
I know of you ? ” 

“ No ! I give you the credit of correct prophecies,” said 
Trevanion, with a sneer. “Not that I believed them at 
the time. But now I will put you to the test, if you wish. 
Tell me why I came here to-night.” 

“ Because you are impelled to do so by a force that you 
could not control, and a fear that you could not explain.” 

“ Right. But will you explain them for me ? ” 

“No ; the time is not yet ripe,” said the Oriental, fixing 
his strange eyes on the handsome, excited face before 
him. “Neither your brain, nor your physical strength, 
could bear the shock of such a revelation. I will only 
give you one clue, follow, or leave it, as you wish. How 
often in your life has that feeling overpowered you — the 
feeling that brought you from the wilds of Southern Africa 
to your old and half-forgotten home to-night?” 

“ How often ? ” echoed the young man dreamily. “ Let 
me think. The first time I was a young child. Yes, I 
recollect. There was a storm, a ship going to pieces on the 
reefs below. I ran almost in terror to you. The same 
sensation overtook me as I reached this room — faintness, 
darkness, a long, deep, dreamless sleep, the awaking to 
fresh vigour, to new life.” 

“ Right 1 Now the second occasion.” 


A CURIOUS EXPERIMENT. 


29 


“ It was — why, it must have been seven years later — I 
was a boy of fourteen, a schoolboy, the ringleader of a riot. 
Again, in the midst of the turmoil and fighting that feeling 
mastered me.” 

“ The third time,” continued Mandhar Ram, “ you were 
a young man, in the midst of the gay scenes and reckless 
enjoyments of a great city. You were then twenty-one. 
To-day is your twenty-eighth birthday, and from a still 
greater distance, from perils far greater, from attractions 
infinitely more powerful, you have sought me once ’again.” 

“ At the end of every seven years — the mystic number — 
the fatal number,” muttered the feeble, croaking voice of 
the old man. “Ask not the why and the wherefore. Be 
content with life, such life as yours — free, untrammelled, 
exhilarating, joyous; keenly alive to every sensation and 
emotion that thrills the heart and stirs the wild, hot pulse of 
youth. Enjoy — and live. It is a great gift — a great gift. 
But, as you value that gift, ask not its source, question not 
its origin. As the flower to the sun, as the blossom to the 
tree, as the insect to its hour of sunlight, the bird to its 
summer-time of song, so are you to the years of Time and 
the summer of Life. That alone can be joyous to youth ! 
Ask not, but receive and enjoy, and be thankful. The day 
you repent the gift, the day you question of its source and 
meaning, the day that the fierceness of human passions 
maddens you to rebellion, or spurs you to crime, that day 
you and life must speak an eternal farewell. Now go; 
we would be alone. Ask no more. Seek your own room, 
and dream again on your boyish couch of the gifts of 
Youth and Hope and Love. For only to dreamers are they 
possible, and only as dreams do they ever visit human 
hearts.” 


CHAPTER V. 


“i DEFY \ n 

“ Only as dreams do they ever visit human hearts.” Those 
words echoed again and again through Jack Trevanion’s 
brain as he sat alone in his chamber and gazed into the 
clear and glowing flames. 

Was it so — really ? Were the best things of life but 
dreams, myths, alike impossible and beautiful and divine, 
that were never destined for mortal attainment. 

It had never been his habit to think deeply. Indeed, 
his nature was too light, too sensuous, and too reckless for 
his actions to be guided by reason or self-control. Study 
had never been an effort to him when his youth had de- 
manded mental application. He mastered most branches of 
knowledge with an ease and quickness that almost amounted 
to genius. Science had once possessed a strong fascination 
for him but a year of the laboratory and a course of meta- 
physics, and the incalculable labour and fatigue entailed 
upon him by the abstruse and perplexing studies on which 
Mandhar Ram insisted, soon dulled his energy and ardour. 

Religion again had come in for a share of his attention, 
but his studies there were abruptly terminated as soon as he 
discovered that under whatever form or guise it appeared, it 
merely professed to teach individal devotees the way and 
the means of attaining an ideal state of bliss that defied 
rational description, and could in no way be pronounced 
certain or satisfactory. Religion, as a creed, or belief, or 
dogma taught of man, yet divorced itself from science and 
clung fondly and foolishly to the dry bones of superstition, 
to the blinding decrees of bigotry, or to a so-called Inspira- 


“I DEFY!” 


81 


tion which could not be reconciled even to the most 
charitable nistorical accuracy. 

He turned to philosophy and to that higher science 
which seemed to him religious in the truest sense, because 
it did not stop short at the gates of nature, or the at- 
tempt to reconcile known and unknown forces. Who k there 
— scientist, atheist, materialist, call him what you will — who 
does not in his secret heart acknowledge that there is a 
something indescribable and inexplicable which underlies 
all the phenomena of nature, and rises in baffling and be- 
wildering superiority to all the futile efforts at explanation, 
and all the feeble attempts which humanity makes at pro- 
pitiation or worship ! 

Youth is generally as intolerant as it is enthusiastic. 
Jack Trevanion ended his studies and pursuits by believing 
very little, and only convinced that it lay with every man to 
seek for himself the knowledge of himself \ the real aim and 
purpose of that brief span of existence designated Life. 
As years flew by the physical and sensuous element in his 
nature began to dominate the purer and more cultured. 
He loved existence for the sheer exhilarating delight of 
living and enjoying life ; the excitement of danger, the in- 
toxication of the senses, the brief triumphs that his many 
talents permitted him to taste, the conquests both ignoble 
and unsatisfying that fed his vanity. 

But now, to-night, he sat alone in the midnight soli- 
tude of his boyhood’s chamber, and reviewed one by one the 
memories and achievements and ambitions of the years he 
had known. Nothing, after all, had satisfied him. Nothing, 
now that he looked back and down the vista of the past, 
seemed really worth the labour of thought, or the fatigue of 
body, or that madness of the senses, mis-called pleasure — 
nothing — nothing. And again those words rang in his ears : 

“ Dream of the gifts of Youth and Hope and Love, for 
only as dreams do they ever visit human hearts.” 

“ After all,” he thought bitterly, “ I am only a sham and 
a cheat, even to myself. I don’t seem real. No feeling 
lasts, no emotion is genuine, no pursuit interests, and neither 
love nor friendship contents me. I have sought out know- 
ledge, and it has served me here and there as a display of 


32 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


power, or an advertisement of mental organisation, but 
none know better than myself how shallow and superficial 
it is. I have dipped into every tributary stream that runs 
into the broad deep ocean of Life. I have tasted its ex- 
citements, its pleasures, its temptations, its pains, its weari- 
ness and vanity and unrest — and for what ? To succumb 
to the common fate of my human brotherhood. To live 
and crave and desire in all the wide world only one 
woman’s love. To feel all other things of life and sense, and 
right and wrong, might perish everlastingly, so only once 
I held her to my heart, and knew that, throb for throb, and 
thought for thought, and passion for passion, her own gave 
back my answer ! . . . Oh, fools ! fools ! we who think 

ourselves wise, and find our paradise centred but in 
another life we seek to make our own ! And yet — to touch 
those proud sweet lips, to hear that heart, at once so strong 
and pure, pulse swiftly back to every throb of mine . . . 

Ah ! that were bliss to dream of, and to die for, counting 
not the cost.” 

He sighed heavily, and the sigh seemed echoed by 
another in the shadowy depths of the chamber. He lifted 
his head and looked round. Nothing ever startled him here ; 
he had been too well used to strange sights and sounds 
in the days when the old Hall had been the sole boundary 
of his world. In the distance of the dimly lit room, it 
seemed to him that a form, shadowy and indistinct, yet 
presenting familiar outlines, was standing and contem- 
plating him. “ Is that you, Mandhar Ram ? ” he said in- 
differently. “ Why don’t you come over to the fire and 
be sociable ? ” 

The figure seemed to gather shape and substance in 
its wavering lines, and the deep and luminous eyes of the 
Oriental looked gravely, searchingly, back to his own. 

“ I have come,” he said, “to warn you as I warned you 
before. Love is fatal to you, the love of the woman you 
desire will come but as the gift of Death. Think of her 
no more if still you would live and enjoy life. The world 
is wide, your gifts are manifold, you may seek, pursue, en- 
joy where you will, but fate bars you from this one other 
human soul. I say not she would never love you. She 


“I DEFY! 


33 


might— nay she does, in a way, but it is only the physical 
attraction of the senses that sways her and draws her 
to you. All that is pure and noble, and feminine and 
divine in her nature, escapes you, and always would.” 

“ Can you tell me why ? ” 

His voice was harsh and discordant. The truths he 
heard were too exact an echo of his own knowledge of him- 
self to seem anything but truth. Just as a natural mirror 
showed him his natural face, so had this strange being al- 
ways had the power of reading his inner nature and holding 
it up before his mental vision as clearly as the glass re- 
flected his physical form. 

It did not surprise -him that every page of his life, and 
every feeling of his heart, was read like an open book. He 
had always known that Mandhar Ram possessed this power, 
and he had never resented it because it seemed useless 
and irrational to do so. “ What is — is ; what will be — will 
be,” he had always said to himself in his boyhood’s days. 

He said it now with a bitter resignation to the inevit- 
able, which indeed was the light in which Mandhar Ram 
stood to him. Never a prophecy but had been fulfilled — 
never a warning that had not been justified ; but that made 
him all the more bitter and hopeless now, as he sat silently 
there, doing stubborn battle against desires he knew 
were selfish, and passions that were ignoble. 

“ If she loves me,” he said at last, “ why should I not 
win her ? I do not say I am worthy ; no man would be 
worthy of her. She is the very crown and perfection of 
ideal womanhood. But when one loves, one forgives im- 
perfections, faults, weakness, and she would help me to rise 
to better things.” 

“No,” said Mandhar Ram, sternly, “there you err; she 
could not help you ; neither man nor woman could. You 
know that yourself. Search your own heart, remember the 
past, remember also that by very reason of the love you 
bear this woman you will be capable of doing her thu 
greatest wrong you have yet inflicted on your kind. Shun 
her, avoid her, strive not to win her love. So much alone 
I may say. If a day ever comes when that warning, now 
disregarded, demands the vengeance of the Fate you defy, 

3 


34 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


my lips will be unsealed and I may speak its reason. But 
neither hour nor time is yet ripe. I may but utter it. 
With you it rests to accept or defy.” 

Then the young man sprang to his feet, his eyes aflame, 
his cheeks flushed : the very madness and recklessness of 
an undisciplined and headstrong nature speaking out in 
the set lips, and the passionate fire of his glance. 

“ I care not,” he said. “ All other things of life you bade 
me taste and enjoy till I proved their cost and found them 
bitter and unsatisfying. This — this alone, the one pure 
draught my thirsting lips desire, ^you would deny me ; your 
warning comes too late. I love her. I who have never 
loved man or woman yet. If every fiend of Hell stood up 
before me now to utter the warning you have uttered it 
would not deter me. Is life so sweet that I should fear 
Death ? Nay, rather would I welcome it, so that it come as 
my lady’s bridal gift. Take back your warning, Mandhar 
Ram ; I heed it not, nor do I care for the evils it threatens.” 
“ You will not accept ? ” 

“ No — a thousand times no ! 1 defy” 

There was no answer. Faintly as a shadow melts and is 
dissolved, silent as descent of darkness from the arms of 
night, so faintly and silently the figure seemed to fade 
back into the gloom from out of which it had arisen, and 
once more Trevanion was alone. 


CHAPTER VI. 


“he LOVED ME — ONCE.” 

“Well!” said Mrs. St. Maur, dropping the Society 
paper she held, with an emotion of genuine astonishment. 
“ Well ! . . . of all the wild, erratic beings, commend 

me to Jack ! What will he do next ? ” 

It was her “ day,” and she sat in the smallest and cosiest 
of her suite of rooms in company with Lady Doris and 
Colonel Herbert, who had lingered after her other visitors. 

“Jack— who?” asked Colonel Herbert laughingly. He 
did not particularly affect Mrs. St. Maur, for he was fastidious 
in his tastes, and she jarred terribly upon him, as, indeed, 
did a great many other society women. 

“ Jack who ? Why, Jack Trevanion, of course ! ” exclaimed 
Hilda St. Maur, excitedly. “ My Jack — my ‘ Knave of 
Hearts/ as I call him. Fancy, he’s broken the bank at Monte 
Carlo ! What do you think of that ? ” 

“ Luck ! ” said Colonel Herbert sententiously. “ Most 
vagabonds and adventurers have it, you know.” 

Lady Doris said nothing, only her face seemed to grow 
warm, and she half raised the screen of feathers in her hand 
as if to shut out the glow of lamp-light 

“ Why do you call him that ? ” said Mrs. St. Maur. “ He 
comes of a good old Cornish family. Tre — Pol — and — Pen, 
you know, are all great at pedigree, but even if he were of 
the ‘ dust of yesterday,’ what could it matter, with such 
gifts and such a face as his ? ” 

“Very little, I suppose, to a woman,” said Colonel 
Herbert bitterly. “ The outside of the ‘ cup and platter,’ is 
all they ever care for.” 

Mrs. St. Maur laughed — her airy, careless laugh. “You 

3 * 


36 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


men are all jealous of him,” she said. “ Not that I wonder 
at it. What an army of irate husbands and furious lovers 
he left behind when he went off to South Africa. And 
now, I suppose he will be more than ever irresistible, if he 
has won a fortune to back his other attractions.” 

“ Oh ! that sort of fortune soon goes,” said Colonel Her- 
bert coldly. “ Probably it will only serve to pay his debts.” 

“ I wish I could break a bank to pay mine,” laughed 
Mrs. St. Maur. “ How silent you are, Doris. Doesn’t the 
news interest you ? But, oh, I forgot, you never did like 
Jack.” 

“ I think a man might do better things than gamble,” 
said Lady Doris quietly. “ It is a senseless waste of time — 
of mind — of money.” 

“ Even if one wins a fortune ? ” 

“ The chance of fortune does not redeem the action, or 
purify the motive.” 

“ Oh, my dear ! ” cried Hilda St. Maur petulantly, “ you 
really are too good and too severe for us all. You would 
make life a sort of ‘ Court of Lyonesse,’ if you could, but 
believe me, it is much more amusing as a comedy of 
Sardous. It is a mistake to take anything seriously.” 

“A mistake you are not likely to make, Hilda.” 

“Certainly not. I am too wise and too fond of enjoy- 
ment.” ' 

“ Oh ! ” said Lady Doris contemptuously. “ If you call it 
enjoyment ” 

“ Well, so it is to me. Only one never has enough money. 
If I were as rich as you, Doris, I would be off to Monte 
Carlo like a shot.” 

“In July — ?” asked Colonel Herbert, raising his brows in 
surprise. 

“ Oh, what does that matter ? One place is as hot as 
another, and there’s always excitement there.” 

“ And danger,” said the Colonel. 

“ So much the better. I hate monotony. Give me a 
life of perpetual change, movement, excitement. No two 
weeks of life should resemble each other.” 

“ They do not really, or in detail,” said Lady Doris. 
“ We only think they do.” 


HE LOVED ME-ONCE.’ 


3T 


“ I wonder if he will come back to town, now,” said Mrs. 
St. Maur, glancing at the paper beside her by way of explain- 
ing the vagueness of that personal pronoun. “ I thought 
he was still in Cornwall. But one might just as well try to 
focus the movements of a comet as those of Jack 
Trevanion.” 

“No doubt he would come if he knew you wished it,” 
said Lady Doris with indifference. 

She rose now, and laid aside the fan of feathers that she 
had held in her hand. The glass showed her her own reflec- 
tion, pale, calm, self-possessed as ever. 

“ How white you look ! ” said Hilda St. Maur. “ Are 
you tired or unwell ? ” 

“ No,” said Lady Doris calmly. It is only the heat, and 
you have so much heliotrope in the room, Hilda. The scent 
always makes me feel faint.” 

“ I thought it was your favourite flower two seasons ago,” 
said Mrs. St. Maur, with a little malicious smile. 

The beautiful woman looked calmly down at her as if 
seeking to fathom the meaning of the careless words. “ In- 
deed ? ” she said, with a slight gesture of indifference. 
“ Oh, my dear, two seasons ago — how can I possibly 
remember what was my favourite flower then ? ” 

“ It certainly is a long time for a woman’s memory to 
be constant to anything,” remarked Colonel Herbert. 
“You will allow me to see you to your carriage, Lady 
Doris ? ” 

She bowed and then permitted herself to be kissed by her 
friend, and walked with her usual stately grace through the 
medley of “ art decorations,” and Liberty furniture of the 
suite of rooms that were the pride and joy of Hilda St. 
Maur’s heart. 

“You never come to see me,” she said to Colonel 
Herbert, as she gave hinj her hand while the footman held 
open her carriage door. “ I know you are steeped in 
engagements, but can you not spare half-an-hour occasionally 
for an old friend ? ” 

He murmured something apologetically about soon 
remedying his error, that he thought she did not receive or 
care for visitors — Errol had said so. 


38 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“ Oh ! was it Errol’s fault ? " she said, and smiled. 
“ Well, show him he is wrong. Come and lunch with me 
to-morrow at two I am leaving town very shortly. I think 
of going to Cornwall again.” 

“ I shall be delighted,” he said, with a glance that showed 
the words were not the idle utterance of conventional 
Society. 

“ My cousin is coming also,” she said, “ and the Baroness 
Giildenstern. You know her, I think.” 

“ Very slightly,” he said. “ She is a deeply interesting 
person, is she not ? ” 

“Judge for yourself,” said Lady Doris. “At all events 
she is clever, and five minutes’ conversation with her is 
worth days and weeks of the idle fripperies that we hear 
from most women’s lips.” 

Then the door was closed, the carriage dashed off, and 
Colonel Herbert took his way thoughtfully homewards in 
the dusky warmth of the summer evening, his thoughts full 
of the woman he had just left — the woman he had shrined 
and worshipped in his heart for more years than he cared 
to remember. 

It had been always hopeless, he told himself it always 
would be hopeless, but that did not prevent his thinking of 
her and worshipping her still. “She will never care for 
any man,” he thought sadly, as he walked along under the 
trees in the almost deserted Park. “ She is not the type of 
woman to commit the feminine folly of ‘ falling in love.’ 
She dreams too much, and her standard is high — too high 
for the men of her time, and her day, I often think. And 
yet how much better and nobler women might make us if 
they chose.” 

He sighed a little, and lit a cigar, and looked away to 
where the red light of the sunset burned over the million 
roofs of the great City. . 

It seemed to him as if a sudden sickness and weariness 
overtook him — a sickness of heart, a weariness of the senses 
for the wasted days and hours that make up the sum total 
of most men’s lives. The beautiful pale face of the woman 
he had left seemed a representation of purer ideals and 
loftier ambitions than any he had sought or set before him. 


“HE LOVED ME— ONCE. 


39 


By nature he was frank and loyal, and of simple tastes and 
studious habits, but the groove of his life had not been one 
that could allow of such tastes and habits to be pursued. 
True, he was not vicious or extravagant, he had never been 
false to a a woman, or lied to a man, yet now, in the sudden 
weakness of this moment, in that curious in-reaching which 
is the effect of introspection, his sins seemed black and 
manifold, and a sense of remorse and shame shook the 
foundations of a peace that had always been more or less 
self-deceptive. 

To most men, whatever their nature or mode of life, 
there comes an hour of awaking such as this. An hour 
when their own impotence, and uselessness and imperfec- 
tions seem suddenly arraigned as before a mental judgment- 
seat. The Past flashes back in condemnatory colours, the 
Present looks hopeless, the Future blank. For just that 
space, be it a moment — an hour — a day — they stand alone 
in a complete and ostracised solitude which no other power 
can invade. In that space, be it long or short, the man is 
confronted by his real self. That imperious, masterful, 
incomprehensible Ego from which there is no escape. 

Let no one think such an hour is without a reason, even 
as it cannot be without an effect. 

But the wise alone seek to know its wherefore, and to 
profit by its teaching. The fools, the careless, the scoffing, 
but rush into deeper depths of vice and wilder excesses of 
pleasure, so that by any means they may escape the dreaded 
memory of a Fate suddenly revealed, a glimpse into the 
dread Beyond, where the ghosts of their dead selves and 
their evil deeds, shall confront them with untiring accusa- 
tions. 

If Colonel Herbert’s thoughts were of a disturbing 
character, those of Lady Doris Marchmont were equally 
troubled ; she could no longer deceive herself into thinking 
that Jack Trevanion’s actions were indifferent to her. Long 
as she had schooled herself to coldness and indifference to 
men, she knew in her heart of heaits that where this one 
man was concerned, emotion had conquered* reason, and 
her slumbering senses had awakened to a passionate pain. 
And yet what was there in his warped, useless and untrue 


40 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


manhood to stir her feelings, awaken her sympathies, claim 
her pity or indulgence ? 

She had heard his name linked to that of scores of 
women, she had known for herself that he respected few 
ties of morality, she could not call to mind a single noble or 
unselfish action of which he was the hero. True he was 
bold to recklessness, brave as a lion, fearless as an Indian 
warrior, but these were purely physical virtues, if indeed 
they deserved to be called virtues at all. They showed no 
strength of character, no nobility of mind — nothing that 
might in any way serve even the blindness of love as an 
excuse for idealizing the object of that love. 

And now, almost in the hour of meeting her again, he had 
started off to that gambling hell of Monte Carlo, to win the 
paltry triumph that awaits the hero of a successful coup. 

A thrill of disgust chilled, and yet moved her, in a vague 
regretful way. She could not account for it. She knew 
that in any other man she would have scorned such an 
action ; it was a folly as well as a personal offence. But she 
could not arraign this one man even before the bar of her 
wounded pride, or condemn him as she felt he ought to be 
condemned. 

“ He might do better things, he could do better things,” 
she thought to herself, while her fleet horses bore her 
swiftly along to her beautiful and luxurious home — the 
home that was so desolate and so lonely, where her presence 
or absence made no living thing, the gladder, or the sorrier. 

/ She loc ked at it all to-night with something of sadness and 
regret in her proud calm eyes. 

It was in her power to give it to any man she chose, but 
then with the gift must go — herself. And as she thought 
of that her heart throbbed almost with pain. For something 
seemed to speak with clear and subtle warning of a desire 
that could not be gratified, a longing that if realized would 
still fail to content. 

“ Even — if I loved him,” she thought, “ what could it 
mean for us? . . . We should never be happy, I feel 
it — we are so totally unsuited — and yet — and yet ” 

Her face grew warm. Her heart thrilled to the memory 
of words she had forbidden, of looks that had spoken more 


IF A WOMAN WILLS ' 


41 


eloquently than any speech. He had loved her once and 
she had banished him. Would he ever return, would he 
ever utter again those words whose passionate rashness she 
had rebuked with scorn, though all the time they had 
seemed to her the sweetest her ears had ever heard ? 

She sighed, and passed on to her boudoir, and had her- 
self dressed in a soft flowing tea-gown of white silk and 
crepe, her usual dress when alone. How lovely she was, but 
no one was there to see her. 

“ I am tired of town,” she said to herself later on that 
night, when neither books, nor work, nor music, had been 
able to calm her restlessness. “ I will go down to Cornwall 
the day after to-morrow. It is lonely there, but at least 
there is the sea in its changeful moods, and all places are 
lonely now.” 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ IF A WOMAN WILLS ” 

Colonel Herbert came to the luncheon party next day, 
his usual gay and courteous self. Errol had not yet arrived, 
and he joined Lady Doris and her friend the Baroness in 
the small drawing-room overlooking the Park. 

The Baroness Giildenstern was a woman of whom one’s 
first impression was “ How very ugly,” yet with whom no 
man or woman could talk for five minutes, without acknow- 
ledging that she was absolutely charming. 

She was a tall, finely-formed woman on a large scale, with 
a massive head and throat, and a quantity of rough fair 
hair somewhat untidily arranged. Her complexion was 
sallow, and her features irregular, but when she began to 
talk, and her eyes flashed, and her face grew animated, no 
one ever thought of her want of beauty. Her personality 
was so strong and so energetic that it swept away all criticism 
as a current sweeps a straw. She greeted Colonel Herbert 
with cordiality. They had met once or twice, and were 
mutually pleased with each other. 


42 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“ We were discussing infant prodigies and their effect,” 
she said smiling, and making room for him on the wide 
cushioned ottoman where she was seated. “ I tell Lady 
Doris that we have had the baby actor, the baby 
musician, the baby reciter — (oh ! who can express the 
loredom of that species?) — and the baby masher. We 
only need a baby novelist and a baby bishop to complete 
the list ! ” 

Colonel Herbert laughed. “ Doubtless,” he said, “ they 
too will come. The demand always brings the supply. Do 
you remember, a few years ago no one ever heard a lady 
play the violin in public? Now there is never a concert 
without one performing more or less badly on that dese- 
crated instrument.” 

“ Why do you call it desecrated ? ” asked Lady Doris. 

“Because so few performers give it right or reverent 
usage,” he answered. “ The violin is the one instrument 
capable of interpreting the divinest and most perfect form 
of melody that the word ‘music’ conveys to us. If the 
player has a soul it speaks out that soul — all that is highest, 
holiest, purest, most divine in nature or in art, it can 
interpret ; but he on his side must treat it as, an inter- 
preter, not a machine ; a thing of life and feeling, not a mere 
vehicle for the clap-trap and showy fireworks that one 
generally hears, and to which a gaping crowd listen and cry 
‘ How wonderful ! ’ ” 

“ You are right,” said the Baroness, who was herself a 
very musical person, and who understood and loved art for 
its own sake. “ But unfortunately while we have an un- 
educated public and starving artists, clap-trap will carry the 
day. The artist knows it is ignoble — feeling and sentiment 
cry out against it — but what will you ? He must live, so 
genius is desecrated at the shrine of necessity.” 

“ I do not think,” said Lady Doris, “ that there is much 
musical genius in our day. Talent, perhaps ; but genius — 
no.” 

“We have had Wagner,” said the Baroness. “ He had 
faults, I grant, but he possessed real genius.” 

“ I thought,” said Colonel Herbert, “ that genius was 
the power not only of understanding and interpreting, but 


“IF A WOMAN WILLS ” 


43 


of making its laws understood. Wagner can hardly 
be said to do that. His music has always raised a storm of 
controversy ; it is grand, but there is also in it something 
monstrous, bizarre, unsatisfactory. It seldom satisfies the 
sense of musical fitness, and even becomes tiresome because 
of the inordinate length to which phrases and melodies are 
drawn out.” 

“ Melodies and Wagner ! ” chimed in the voice of 
Errol, who had entered during the discussion. “ Merciful 
Heavens ! what a combination ! Did he not scorn 
melody with all his heart and soul? Whenever I have 
listened to one of his operas, and heard a melodious 
phrase or anything that seemed to me ‘musical,’ I have 
always been struck with the rapidity with which he runs 
away from it, as if absolutely ashamed that it should have 
surprised him into giving it expression. Passion, storm, 
warfare, controversy, these, I grant, he can interpret, and 
that with a force that stuns and bewilders the listener. But 
it is not music, and it does not please, and I don’t believe 
it will ever be popular.” 

“ Not in England, perhaps,” said the Baroness, some- 
what scornfully — “ not to a nation who persist in forcing 
their greatest singers to keep on, on, to the end of their days 
with the school-room rubbish of so-called ‘ popular ballads ’ 
— a nation who can patiently listen for a quarter of a 
century to ‘ Tom Bowling,’ and ‘ Home, Sweet Home ! ’ 
and still encore them ! ” 

“I daresay,” said Lady Doris, smiling, “it seems very 
strange to foreigners to go to any of our representative 
* people’s concerts,’ and listen to the stuff the singers sing. 
But, you see, the choice of songs is not given to the 
vocalists, but to the publishers. Whatever of real art or 
real feeling there might be in an artist, that hateful royalty 
system would destroy. Composers and singers are alike at 
the mercy of trade, and if they don’t accept its conditions 
they must starve. Now, genius should never be hampered 
with conditions, or worried about money matters, but un- 
fortunately genius is almost always born to poverty and 
struggles and hardships. To live at all for that which it 
desires to live, nothing remains but to accept such terms 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


as may best preserve life. But it is as though we tied a 
stone to the wing of a bird, and then bade it fly.” 

“ Poor Genius ! ” sighed Colonel Herbert. “ How much 
it has suffered in its earthly pilgrimages ! I suppose it has 
grown weary of them at last, since it so rarely visits us 
now.” 

“ Perhaps,” said the Baroness, thoughtfully, “ it is more 
widely diffused than you imagine. There is a far greater 
amount of capability and talent in the world of our day 
than there was a century, or half a century, ago. Con- 
sequently genius must shine with a very brilliant light 
indeed to be distinguished from the host of other constella- 
tions. It is absolutely necessary now to possess knowledge, 
and therefore the race has set itself to acquire it. Formerly 
learning was the privilege of the few, and then a matter of 
extreme difficulty; now it is universal. From the lowest to 
the highest, there seems an instinctive effort to grasp at 
knowledge. Science and art, of course, are included in 
the term.” 

“ How do you explain the fact ? ” asked Lady Doris. 

“ I should say it was simply the outcome of the universal 
law of evolution — an effort on the part of human units to 
reach out into a wider and fuller consciousness. Man’s 
faculties are not yet fully developed — those faculties which 
might permit of his grasping his own environments, or 
comprehending what really is his own self-consciousness ; 
the real ‘ 1/ which is something far more important than 
our physical structure, with a combination of nerves, and 
functions, and sensations.” 

“Yet, has not science proved those nerves and functions 
to be the seat of the intellect, the reason, and the soul ? ” 
said Colonel Herbert. 

She laughed slightly. “ Oh ! ” she said, “ if you talk of 
science, you descend to a purely material view of the 
problem of life. Science does not recognise such a term as 
‘ Spirit,’ or separate consciousness from the physical body. 
Yet it alone is real to those who have studied and thought 
out the question in all its bearings. Matter, to use the 
favourite scientific term, is only a manifestation on one 
plane of nature, and, indeed, is the form and essence of 


IF A WOMAN WILLS • 


45 


nature itself, as understood and comprehensible to the 
mere physical senses, needed for existence on that 
plane.” 

“ You are going too deep for our poor brains,” said Lady 
Doris, rising as luncheon was announced. “ Remember, 
my dear Baroness, that the butterflies of fashion have 
neither the time nor the mind to think out such problems 
as these.” 

“ More shame for them,” said the Baroness, indignantly. 
“ They will suffer for their folly, believe me.” 

“No doubt,” said Colonel Herbert, offering his arm; 
“but do you think that telling them so, has a deterrent 
effect? I fancy not. The fools are in the majority, 
Baroness, as they have always been ! ” 

Then they went in to luncheon, and the conversation 
drifted into more conventional channels. Errol devoted 
himself to his cousin with a pertinacity that Colonel 
Herbert had not before remarked, but it was a pertinacity 
born of “ the time and the hour ” that made his opportunity. 
Now that Jack Trevanion had returned again he felt less 
secure than ever. He had never seen Lady Doris manifest 
any interest in any man, but some sure instinct ot 
jealousy and animosity told him that this one man, at all 
events, had power to move her calm composure and proud 
disdain into something more like natural and womanly 
feeling. If she hnd been like any other woman, he might 
have attributed the change to caprice, or that momentary 
interest or fascination which serves them as an excuse for 
showing favour to one man more than another ; but Lady 
Doris was so different to most women that he never 
attempted to judge her by their standard. 

He tried to get her to speak of Jack Trevanion, and 
was foolish enough to censure and abuse him for his 
gambling propensities and wild habits. Lady Doris listened 
quite unmoved. 

“ Are you so very perfect yourself, my dear Errol ? ” she 
said at last. “ I fancy I have heard a different tale, both 
from my father and yours.” 

He coloured slightly. “ Oh ! ” he said, “ every fellow 
must sow his wild oats. I’m going to turn over a new leal 


46 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


now. Herbert’s been lecturing me on my evil ways. He’s 
an awfully good fellow.” 

“ I agree with you there,” said Lady Doris, letting her 
glance rest on the bronzed soldierly face that was turned in 
courteous attention towards the Baroness ; “ though I 
would rather sum up his attraction as that of one of the 
few gentlemen modern society and manners have left 
us.” 

“I hope,” said Errol, lowering his voice and bending 
closer to her, “ that you are not really going to bury 
yourself in that hateful old Cornish ruin again ? Hilda is 
going to Carlsbad. Why don’t you go with her ? ” 

“ I do not wish to,” said his cousin, coldly. “ I am 
tired of foreign health resorts, and I do not particularly 
wish for Hilda’s companionship.” 

“ But why not stop in town ? Why do you wish to go 
to Cornwall ? ” 

“ May I ask why you set yourself to arraign my actions, 
or question my reasons ? ” said his cousin, proudly. 

Errol coloured again in some confusion. “ Oh ! hang it 
all, Doris !” he said. “ Surely as your cousin I may show 
some interest in what you do ? ” 

“ You may show as much as you please,” she sad, 
coldly ; “ but I object to being asked for explanations, and 
I certainly decline to give them. I am going to Cornwall, 
and I leave town to-morrow. The why and the wherefore 
only concerns myself.” 

****** 

“ I’m afraid, Herbert, it’s no go ! ” said Errol, some 
quarter of an hour later, as they sat smoking cigarettes 
together, after the ladies had left them. 

“ What’s no go ? ” asked the Colonel, looking in surprise 
at the clouded brow and moody face of the young man. 

“ My success with Lady Doris. She won’t have any- 
thing to say to me.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Colonel Herbert, calmly, “ I thought you 
told me the other day she wasn’t your style, and that you 
had no views in that quarter ? ” 

“ I’ve always been fond of her,” said the young man, 


“IF A WOMAN WILLS ’ 


47 


gloomily. “And it would be such a splendid thing for 
me ! ” he went on. “ She’s so jolly rich.” 

“ Don’t you think,” said Colonel Herbert, “ that it’s 
rather — mean — to marry a woman for her money ? ” 

“ Mean ? Why, good gracious, man ! what’s come over 
you ? Isn’t it done every day ? ” 

“ The fact of a thing being done every day, doesn’t 
make it right to do it.” 

“ Oh, hang it all, Herbert, don’t you begin to preach,” 
said the young man testily. “Of course it isn’t as if it 
was only her money I cared for. I love her as much as I 
could ever love any woman. But I know what it is, it’s 
all that vagabond adventurer, he’s turned her head just as 
he’s turned scores of other women’s. D — n him.” 

“ What makes you think she — she loves him ? ” asked 
Colonel Herbert. “ I’m sure you are mistaken ; she is so 
proud, so clever — so beautiful — the last woman on earth to 
throw herself away for sake of a handsome face, for after 
all that makes the sum and total of Trevanion’s pre- 
tensions.” 

“And isn’t it always the ‘last woman on earth’ we 
think capable of doing a mad thing, who always does it ? ” 
exclaimed Errol impatiently. “ Those quiet', proud, self- 
contained women are just the most reckless when they do 
take the plunge. I tell you I’m certain she cares for 
Trevanion. I don’t know why I should think so, but I 
do, and as she’s free and rich and independent, why she 
can please herself, of course, and throw her wealth and her 
person into his arms, if the fancy takes her ! ” 

“ Hush,” said Colonel Herbert sternly, “ you must not 
speak of her like that. Your cousin is too pure and true a 
woman to be led by caprice, or swayed by a mere fancy.” 

“ Oh — is she ? ” sneered Errol, who had now completely 
lost his temper. “You are a man of the world, Herbert, 
and ought to know something of women. Haven’t you 
found that love is a magician against whom wisdom, 
friendship, prudence, counsel, all avail nothing. Look at 

the Countess of E , marrying a penniless adventurer 

young enough to be her grandson ! Look at old Lady 
Fitz-Patrick doing the same thing almost ! Bah ! it’s no use 


48 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


to talk, or argue. If a woman is bent on doing a thing 
she’ll do it, and Lady Doris won't be an exception to her 
sex in that particular, whatever she may be in others.” 

Colonel Herbert said nothing ; his face was grave, and 
almost sad. In his heart he was saying to himself with a 
fear that had never troubled him before, “ Heaven keep 
her from such a fate ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

WON ! 

There had been a storm, fierce and wild as most of the 
storms are that burst over the Cornish coast. The passion 
and the wrath of it were still throbbing in the pulses of the 
passionate sea, and the wind was fitful and stormy. 

The whole coast line was fringed with white foam, and 
the waves as they broke on the rocks seemed to explode 
into volumes of dense white steam that rose in the air till 
they caught the light of the dying sun-rays and then splintered 
and shivered into flakes of vivid fire. 

Lady Doris stood and watched the scene with that sense 
of awe and wonder which this wild and picturesque coast 
always inspired. 

Her eyes were soft and dreamy, her face had caught a 
faint colour from the sweet keen air, and her hair was loose 
and rippled about her brow. Her gown of dark serge was 
simplicity itself, though deftest hands of fashionable 
milliners had cast its simple elegance together, and she 
looked more lovely, more womanly, and more approachable 
— so to speak — than when she played the great lady in the 
salons of society. 

So intent was her gaze, so far away her thoughts, that she 
seemed unconscious of any other presence ; but gradually a 
possessing sense of nearness and companionship made itself 
felt — a feeling that had once been all too painfully familiar, 
and she turned as if compelled to turn, and saw standing 
not half-a-dozen yards away, the figure of a man. 


WON! 


49 


As their eyes met, a sense of embarrassment was visible 
on each face. The man bowed first and came forward, 
holding out his hand. “ I thought I could not be mis- 
taken, ” he said. “It is you — Lady Doris ?” 

She let him clasp her hand, but her colour changed and 
her self-command deserted her with the sudden shock and 
surprise of his presence. 

Her thoughts seemed sweeping in a circle, like a bird un- 
able to poise. She could not collect them, or frame them into 
the measure of conventional speech. “I — I thought you 
were at Monte Carlo,” she stammered. 

“ I was at Monte Carlo ; I returned last night,” he said, 
looking at her with eyes more eloquent than most men’s 
words, yet eyes that for once had grown humble of their 
power and less sure of their effect. 

“ Are you staying at Porhynna ? ” asked Trevanion 
presently. 

“ Yes, I came here about a week ago.” 

She was silent again, her face turned seawards, her eyes 
on the curling waves. Memory swept over her as the 
spray swept over the rocks and shingle ’below. Now keen 
almost to pain, now dark with horror and disgust, now 
faint with a joy of which she felt afraid — afraid because 
every woman knows that no man can be quite indifferent, 
or quite impersonal to her who has once held it in his 
power to give her such memories. Bury them deep as she 
may, their ghosts will start to life and confront her in after 
years by the mere spell of a word, a look, a scene, the scent 
of a flower, the strain of a once familiar melody. 

These two had many memories between them, and they 
came crowding back fierce and swift here on those wild 
cliffs, with the breath of the summer air, and the faint salt 
spray of the sea. Conventionality seemed to fall of! 
them as a useless and discarded garment. They were noi 
like the two people who had fenced with each other in 
bitter and disdainful fashion, in Hilda St. Maur’s drawing- 
room. 

The silence grew awkward at last. Lady Doris broke it 
resolutely, but with effort. “ I must be going home,” she 
said, “ It is a long way to Porhynna.” 


4 


60 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“ Have you walked ? ” he asked in some surprise. 

“ Oh yes, I always walk here. I am fond of exercise." 

“ Are you alone at Porhynna ? ” he asked. 

“No, I have a friend staying with me. The Baroness 
Giildenstern. Do you know her ? ” 

“No,” he said, and drew a breath of relief. He had 
feared she was about to say Mrs. St. Maur was her com- 
panion. “ May I not see you home ? ” he urged as she held 
out her hand in farewell. 

“ It is so far, so much out of your way,” she murmured 
confusedly. 

“ I think,” he said, “ you might guess how little I mind 
distance or exertion on your behalf. May I come ? ” 

“If— if you wish.” 

He turned and walked beside her without another word. 

“ So you have heard I was at Monte Carlo ? ” he said 
presently. 

“Yes and of your doings there. Now-a-days one’s 
actions are pilloried for one, however much privacy is 
desired.” 

“Of course those d — d society gossips get a hold of every- 
thing. I — I beg your pardon,” he added hurriedly, as he 
saw her hurt and offended look. “ I’m afraid I’ve picked 
up all sorts of rough ways and habits in these two years.” 

“ Was South Africa so very uncivilized ? ” she asked. 

“Yes and no. I daresay it was my own fault. I chose 
the rough and unconventional side of life because I was so 
sick of the false and fashionable.” 

“Yet you returned to it” 

“Not to ‘it’; to something it held for me. I think I 
could not help myself. There are feelings that grow too 
strong for one ; you must yield or grow mad. At least that 
is how they affect me. I have always had a dread of that 
sensation coming over me. It is fatal in its effects, or 
results.” 

“ Do you not think it might be possible to conquer such a 
feeling before it grew — too strong ? ” 

“No,” he said doggedly. “I nearly died with the effort 
once, and it was useless after all. I have made up my rnind 
I won’t attempt it again.” 


WON! 


61 


“ Do you mean to compel Fate to meet your wishes ? ” 

He smiled. “Fate,” he said, “to a man, generally 
means a woman. I cannot answer your question yet, Lady 
Doris; but rest assured that if I can compel my Fate 
to meet my wishes, I shall not spare myself either effort or 
trouble.” 

She shivered suddenly, though the summer air was still 
warm. 

“ Are you cold ? ” he asked, with quick concern. “ You 
don’t look strong. You should not stay out so late. The 
air is always chilly after sunset on this coast.” 

“ Oh, I am quite strong,” she said ; “ and I like wild 
weather, it braces one up, knocks off the cobwebs, I always 
say.” 

“ I am glad we have one taste in common,” he said. “ I 
too love storm and wind. It has an electrical effect upon 
me. I remember as a child always fancying that it blew 
life into us — the fierceness and the power and the strength 
of it used to exhilarate me as no other sensation could 
do.” 

“ You are rather fond of physical sensations, I imagine,” 
she said. m 

“ They make up the sum of life, do they not ? There 
are moments on which one can look back, glad only to have 
lived to know them — hours which make all other hours pale 
and colourless in comparison.” 

“ I have never known such hours,” she said coldly. 
“ But I think to enjoy in the way you describe, needs an 
enthusiastic, as well as a sensuous nature. It is merely 
physical pleasure born of a purely physical temperament.” 

“ I wonder,” he said suddenly, “ if you are really as cold 
as you seem, Lady Doris ? ” 

She flushed to the roots of her fair, ruffled hair. He 
caught her eyes in their sudden upward glance, and the 
flash and fire of his own seemed to burn down into her very 
soul, telling her the tale that years before they had told, 
and for which she had banished him from her presence. 

“ I would rather not discuss myself,” she said hurriedly. 
“ It cannot matter what I seem or am. Every person has 
a distinct individuality, of whose nature they alone are 

4 * 


62 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


conscious. To the outside world what is it but that we 
please or amuse, satisfy or offend ? That is all it knows, 
or cares to know.” 

“Yes,” he said slowly; “but I am not the ‘outside 
world ’ to you, Lady Doris, and I want to know more than 
it does. I am hungry for your thoughts, your moods, your 
real self. Do you remember in the old days, when I was 
so — desperate, how once I said I would like to have your 
very soul my own, to know, and read, and possess. That 
is how I feel again — to-night. It is your spell, your witch- 
craft. The feeling rises with the rising wind. I don’t 
think even you could master it now.” 

He took off his hat and shook back the thick, dusky 
hair, and the wind that lifted the curls from his brow, 
blew one soft, loosened tress of hers against his face. He 
caught it and kissed it passionately. 

“ Let us cease to act,” he said. “ You know I love you — 
you knew it long ago. Are you cold enough and unfor- 
giving enough to send me from you a second time ? ” 

He had paused beside her. The dusk had fallen rapidly, 
the wind swirled and so ghed amidst the overhanging 
branches of the trees. In the gloom their eyes met, and 
the mastering spell of a passion, the like of which she had 
never conceived or believed possible, held Lady Doris 
dumb and yet territied. She could not speak. She could not 
control her thoughts or herself. That one presence, with its 
masterful magnetism, thrilled her through and through. 
Despite her drooping lids, she could see those remembered 
eyes gazing back to hers with the old adoring, passionate 
gaze — filling her with feverish trouble, and strange and 
subtle fancies. 

A lifetime of emotions seemed crowded into that 
moment of silence, and yet she was as far as ever from 
understanding whether she really loved him, or whether it 
was that strange power and influence of his which made her 
forget pride and coldness, and all the usual armour of her 
woman’s dignity, and feel that for his sake she could un- 
bend and acknowledge herself but a woman after all. 

“Are you never going to speak?” he said suddenly. 
“ Oh, my marble goddess, come down from your pedestal 


WON! 


63 


for once. I love you — love you — love you ! Do you hear ? 
— do you care ? Oh ! you must — you must ! ” 

He seized her hands in both of his, and held them 
against his heart so that she could feel its quick, hard 
throbs. 

There was not a vestige of colour in his face ; for once 
in his life he was too wildly and passionately in earnest to 
master himself. He had not intended to say such words, 
but they had burst the bonds that so long had held them 
in his heart’s silence, and he felt now as if his very life 
hung on her answer to his love. 

“ Speak ! ” he said, with a quick, nervous pressure of the 
hands he held. She felt the thrill of that strong clasp 
tingling like flame in her pulses. She lifted her heavy 
white lids and looked at him, and as she looked, the colour 
softly rose and spread from throat to cheek, and up to the 
fair, calm brow. 

His face with its unusual pallor startled her. She met his 
eyes — eager, beseeching, passionate, and then — how or why 
she never knew — with a sudden, little, quick movement, 
her hands were drawn about his neck, the dark, curl- 
crowned head stooped to hers; in an instant both lips 
touched, trembled, clung together, in a kiss that would make 
the memory of a lifetime. 

“ Oh ! ” he said, suddenly releasing her and gazing down, 
down into the depths of her eyes, as if, indeed, to read her 
very soul, “ Oh ! you do love me — you do love me, Doris. 
I am not dreaming. It is really — you .” 

She came close to him in the dusky gloom. Pride and 
coldness seemed to fall from her like a mantle that she 
needed no longer. “ Yes, it is really me,” she said. “But 
I think we are both — mad. Do not you ? ” 

“Heaven grant the madness long continuance ! ” he said, 
in a sudden, breathless way, “ if joy be madness.” 

He drew her closer to his side, but she trembled greatly 
and struggled from his arms. 

“ No, no ! ” she said. “ I am — afraid. I cannot bear it. 
Take me home now. I am not used to strong emotions ! * 


CHAPTER IX. 


HER THOUGHTS. 

It was close upon midnight, and Lady Doris sat before the 
fire in her dressing-room, sleepless and feverish with vexed 
and bewildering thoughts. 

Her face was very pale. The long, loosened coils of her 
hair hung in two strands to the hem of her white, fur 
bordered gown. Her eyes were dark and serious. Once a 
flush, hot and bright, as if born of some sweet shame, 
touched her cheeks and throat. She thought of that kiss 
as it had burned on her lips, and the memory brought back 
afresh the sensation. 

Did she love him ? Was this wild feeling in her veins, 
this pulsing memory, this unrest, this mingling of doubt and 
dread— Love ? 

To the world she had always seemed a cold, proud 
woman, incapable of the softness and weakness which 
is almost inseparable from that subjugation and yielding 
of self, which a great passion inspires and demands. 
To the world — yes — but she knew herself as the world 
could never know her ; she knew that it was in her to give 
grandly, generously, nobly, but so to give she must have full 
faith and trust in the recipient of her bounty. So to give 
she must 

". . . Love infinitely 

And be loved — ” 

It had always seemed to her that women let themselves 
be wooed too easily, and won too lightly. That they were 
carelessly regardless of their own power, and by setting too 


HER THOUGHTS. 


65 


small a value on themselves, gave men the right to de- 
preciate them also. 

How could men display chivalry to a set of beings who 
talked their slang, copied their manners, followed their 
pursuits, and were, in dress, voice, and habits, a com- 
promise between the harlots they kept, and the social 
proprieties they obeyed? Women whose minds were 
empty of all culture, whose hearts were incapable of a pure 
and true emotion, who lived for Society, with its morbid 
and senseless exaggerations of pleasure, who had an elastic 
code of morals that condoned every sin so long as the 
sinner obeyed the nth Commandment, who gossipped over 
each other’s dresses and immoralities and passions in the 
same breath ; to whom content seemed an unknown word, 
and shame an unexperienced sensation ; who had no deep 
or earnest thought of life or its meaning, any more than 
they ever allowed to death and its inevitable vengeance ; who 
regarded wifehood as a cloke for amusing immoralities, and 
maternity as a discarded and old-fashioned obligation 
which was more honoured by evasion than observance ; 
who were worth as little as it is possible for an epitomised 
folly to represent, and who laughed to scorn the idea that 
they might be anything better, or truer, or more womanly, if 
they would. 

Knowing her world as she knew it, and being by nature 
and temperament too cultured and too proud to stoop to its 
follies, Lady Doris could only present as a shield the cold 
and passionless exterior which that world declared to be 
her real self. 

But it was that Real Self with whom she was holding 
commune and confidence in the dark night watches— it 
was that Real Self, whose sad and searching eyes seemed 
bent on her now, reading down to her secret soul, and 
baring the pages of her every feeling. 

“ Is it not for Love’s sake you love, not for your lover’s ? ” 
a voice seemed demanding. “ A great soul cannot mate 
with a lesser. The sense of superiority on a woman’s part 
lessens by sure degrees the chains that passion forges. 
Have you not always — always — searched and sought for the 
deep things of life — the solid grains of an everlasting Truth 


56 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


among all the chaff and dust of the world’s offerings ? How, 
then, can this love content you? It is fierce, mastering, 
imperious; it wraps you round like a living flame, rising 
fierce and high, by might of the breath that fans it. But 
the hot love is the short-lived, and when you turn to it 
for warmth, you are scorched by its flame for one brief 
hour, only to be chilled by its ashes for all the hours to 
follow.” 

She closed her eyes, and leaned back wearily in her 
chair. 

A sudden drowsy numbness overpowered her, and it 
seemed to her that she slept and dreamed ; yet with senses 
wide awake and strung to some high and subtle tension, the 
like of which she had never known. 

And as she dreamed, a tall and stately form, with a dark 
face, grave almost to sadness, seemed to glide slowly into 
the room, and there, standing with dark, mysterious eyes 
bent upon her own, and arms folded on its breast, it 
spoke : 

“What your heart has told you is the truth. Your life 
has been starved of love, and now you say you have found 
it. Beware — the voice that whispers to your soul speaks 
out a greater truth than you dare acknowledge. Love sways 
you, moves you, compels you, but the one thing that could 
bring content to you as its gift, is lacking. You want what 
few women ever dream of desiring. The world will not 
give it you, nor any man, nor any human love, but 
least of all the love that you have stooped to accept . . . 
The pure to the impure, the wise to the fool, the higher to 
the lower nature — these are not meant to mate, and they 
know it. To disobey the instinct that warns, is to bring 
dow n sorrow, and suffering and shame. There are laws so 
just, so beautifully balanced that, from all time to all time, 
they stand immutable and incapable of amendment. There 
is a love born of the senses, fostered by attraction, madden- 
ing with uncertainty, a love that defies reason and wisdom, 
sweet with all sweetness, but brief as a summer night. For 
such a love lives have been wrecked again and again ; for 
such a night the whole colourless days of men’s ‘afterwards’ 
been sacrificed. There is, yet again, a love, slow to begin, 


HER THOUGHTS. 


57 


yet sure of its every step as it sinks slowly, surely, into the 
heart. A love, giving greatly, and asking little return ; a 
love to trust in, to rest in, to be sure of, as the sands of 
time shift beneath the passing footsteps of Change, and 
Sorrow and Despair. It is not often it comes — that latter 
love — not often, but it has the charm of all others deep 
hidden in its core, as the flower holds its scent. It is 
passion and reverence, and friendship, and worship, all 
combined. It is humble, not assertive; and patient, 
because strong ; and gentle, because its patience is infinite. 
These two loves stand before you now. Choose which you 
will take. The choice is rare to women’s lives, but it has 
come to yours.” 

Then she seemed to stir and move restlessly, and her 
eyes opened and gazed at that calm, inscrutable face with 
something of wonder and of awe. 

“ Who are you,” she asked, “who know so much of me, 
and of my life ? ” 

The sweet sonorous voice answered calmly, “ I am one to 
whom Knowledge is a closer friend than the frail clay of 
Humanity. I am one who has learnt to live alone, because 
solitude holds deeper truths and wider lessons than man 
teaches, in his narrow groove of self-contented tradition. I 
build not in words, but in deeds ; and what I seek to know, 
I must. know. I can read your Fate, but, though I cannot 
avert, I can warn. They say women care nought for 
warnings — they are but added incentives to resolves already 
formed. Yet you have less of the lower element of woman- 
hood in you than most of your sex .... and in this love 
* you gain less than you give. It is for your own peace — 
your own happiness — your own future, that I warn you now. 
Trust not your heart — it is weak; trust not your senses — 
they are spell-bound ; trust not your brain — it is dazed. 
But trust your soul, and the voice that speaks to you from 
thence, for that cannot lie — nor would crime, or shame or 
folly desecrate the world, did men but listen to the one 
thing in and of them that is true. But they will not. 
They are blind and deaf to all save what ministers to their 
pleasures, or necessities. But you — you are not deaf yet, 
though passion blinds your eyes.” 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


£8 


“ No,” she said. “ I am not deaf or blind, but I love 
him.” 

“You — think — you love him.” 

“ I love him,” she repeated, and a little quick sob broke 
from her heart. “ Oh, why is my life to be always denial and 
repression — a cold, hard, colourless thing, where I am always 
alone, and always weary, and always eating my soul out with 
vain longings ? ” 

“ Take the wise love — the love that will last. In time 
that will content you — your nature will grow and strengthen 
— it will not be warped and stunted, and spoiled, as this 
mad and reckless love of yours can spoil it.” 

“ I do not desire that other love — or return it.” 

“ It is great and pure and unselfish enough to lift you to 
itself — to be stay, and help, and comfort, yet ask no 
reward.” 

“ I care not. I have no heart to give — nor any memory 
— nor any regard — save for him to whom I gave myself to- 
day.” 

“ Will you try him — will you prove for yourself his un- 
worthiness ? ” 

She hesitated. A slight flush came into her face. “No 
— I love him. In that, all is said.” 

A deep sigh in the stillness. A faint chill breath upon 
her cheek. She started, and looked round. The room was 
empty. The fire had burned low in the grate. She rose to 
her feet, her eyes bewildered, and, vaguely alarmed, looked 
back into the shadows. 

“ I — I must have slept — I must have dreamt,” she said 
to herself, and shivered as with the touch of some chilling 
fear. She saw her face reflected in the mirror beyond, and 
it seemed lined, and wan, and haggard, as if pain and time 
had written on it a story of suffering and endurance. 

She went close to the glass, and looked long and search- 
ingly at herself. “ Is it only my beauty for which he loves 
me ? ” she thought, “ the poor shell in which ‘ I ’ dwell ? 
Can I keep him — hold him — by anything greater, deeper, 
stronger, worthier than just what he sees — there ? If sick- 
ness — disfigurement — accident — robbed me of this bloom of 
cheek — this lustre of eye — this wealth of hair — this outline 


HER THOUGHTS. 


59 


of form and feature, I know that to myself I should still be 
the same — as well worth loving, as true of heart and 
nature, as I am now. But he — he — would he think so ? Is 
there not in all men’s nature that which craves for external 
perfection, which, flushed with passion and triumph, delights 
to place its idol before an envious crowd, crying, ‘ Behold 
— look! This is mine — mine only ! This face, this form, 
this loveliness, this grace ! I am their possessor ! ’ ” 

She sighed and turned away and slowly paced the room, 
her long white skirts flowing in softly undulating lines over 
the rich carpet. 

“No use,” she cried to her heart. “No use to rebel. 
That which created you for man’s curse is unpitying to you 
still. Though you had all knowledge, and all wisdom, and 
love that was infinite, and virtue that was angelic, it would 
not serve you to win any man’s love like the mere external 
beauty which maddens and attracts his senses. Deny 
yourself to those senses, and he cares for you less than 
for the veriest impurity that beauty masks ! . . . . 

Oh, life ! life ! mystery of all the ages that have been 
and are to be, what have you done for us whom sex has 
cursed, save to breed longings and bitterness and passionate 
striving for that which the masterhood of man forbids ? . . . 
We must act as others act ; follow the rule and law of 
tyranny, yet meekly kiss the feet of ruler and of law-maker. 
March on, on, with the weak and frivolous crowd, or be 
trodden down by force of numbers. Truly, the fools are the 
wise, seeing they ask not cf the Why or the Beyond, but 
drink the shallow cup of each new day’s delight, unques- 
tioning and uncaring for the nature of the draught.” 


CHAPTER X. 


HIS THOUGHTS. 

There was triumph, wild, and deep, and exhilarating, in 
Trevanion’s heart. He had won his prize iat last. The 
cold, proud beauty, for whom men had sighed so vainly, 
the wealthy and high-born queen of Society, against whom 
no tongue could utter reproach, nor the most censorious 
invent a slander. She had stooped from her throne of 
honour and dignity, and held out to him the white hand 
which others far worthier had coveted without success. 
The clear, grave eyes had drooped before his own; the 
calm face flushed and paled like that of a timid schoolgirl. 
The proud sweet lips had trembled in answering passion 
to the mute compelling of his passionate caress. She loved 
him ! she loved him ! All night long that one thought was 
in his heart, set to rhyme with all sweetest possibilities of 
a possible future; all right he seemed to feel that beautiful 
yielding form as it had rested against his beating heart with 
the tremulous, timid grace born of the first shy reluctance 
of acknowledged conquest. 

Gradually the triumph and the pride began to subside, 
and a little thrill of shame, and almost of regret, took its 
place. He looked back on his life ; its stained pages, its 
ignoble pursuits, its indolence, and uselessness, and selfish- 
ness. Fit gifts, surely, to bring to one who might have 
graced a monarch’s throne by right of a grand and noble 
nature. He had always lived for himself; he had never, 
so far as he could remember, denied himself a single thing 
he could possibly obtain from the weakness or ignorance of 
his fellow men. The culture and instruction lavished on his 
youth had, in a measure, created a distaste for the absolute 
coarseness of sin, but in all ways of refining vice, and minis- 


HIS THOUGHTS. 


61 


tering to his senses, xnd feeding his inborn delight in beauty 
and pleasure, he had been a veritable master. 

Now Love, in its purest, deepest sense, had at last 
touched him ; between that kiss of yesterday and all the 
kisses that his lips had wooed and won, a gulf seemed to 
yawn. The tyranny of natural instincts lost their power, 
and he felt, even in his hour of triumph, that his own un- 
worthiness rose like a barrier between himself and the purity 
and generosity of this great creature. 

“ I ought never to have done it. I ought never to have 
returned,” he said, remorsefully, as he lay tossing and wake- 
ful on his pillows, watching the pale grey dawn. “ I am 
not worthy to touch the hem of her garments, still less to call 
her ‘wife.’ And yet — and yet she loves me. I wonder 
why ? ” 

He bent his head on his clasped hands in some dim and 
instinctive effort at prayer or worship. “ God . . . make 
me a little worthy of her . . he cried passionately, but 
even as the cry left his lips, the sense of its futility smote 
him with all the bitterness of mockery. 

Why should God hear that cry among all the million, mil- 
lion cries of earth which sorrow and remorse were momentarily 
wringing from tortured hearts ? He had believed in no God, 
he had neither faith nor hope, nor any strong moral prin- 
ciple, in his nature. He had lived and laughed and taken 
every good thing that life offered, and now, why should he 
blame results that had been self-created, or appeal against 
them to a mythical Power in which he had never believed ? 

The awed, wistful reverence of childhood, which learns at 
its mother’s knee of One who loves and controls its destiny, 
had never been his. Religion was a mere vague sonu thing 
at which he had scoffed in youth’s light-hearted day of 
enjoyment. Never, so far as he could remember, had a 
thought of earnestness, a dream of Faith, a hope of future 
beatitude troubled or perplexed him. 

Material life was all he could see or comprehend. Im- 
mortality he had never considered as in any way deserving 
of deep thought. It lay at the bottom of a casket of mys- 
teries into which he had never peered. There seemed 
nothing in him to demand, or deserve it. 


62 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


What was Man? Had not Mandhar Ram explained 
that to him again and again. A bundle of carbon, a com- 
bination of gases, a mass of organs, senses, feelings, that, 
being physical, affected him physically, and were stunted or 
developed according to his circumstances and surround- 
ings. Human nature was but one combination of elements. 
Analysed and dissected, the component parts were exactly 
the same. 

Civilized beings threw a little gloss and superficiality over 
their feelings, but the feelings were identical with those 
that beat in the breast of the savage in the most uncivil- 
ized corner of the plane of earth-life. 

He knew all this so well, so well. Science had preached 
it, common-sense had preached it. Material life, as it 
unwound itself from the skein of its birthright, had pro- 
claimed it. Why, then, did he to-night feel troubled and 
perplexed and uncertain ? Why did that faint cry to a 
Being in whose personality -he had no faith, and in whose 
justice he had seen but an irresponsible tyranny, rise in 
his heart, and force its utterance into the black, dim vault of 
space, that for him meant only nothingness ? 

Why, indeed ? Had love spiritualized him at last ? Had 
the greater nobility of a g eatc r nature, which in some dim 
way he recognized and worshipped, taught him the higher 
truths of a higher life than he had ever imagined ? 

The physical beauty would fade with age ; the senses 
would be dulled and deadened ; emotions would lose their 
charm, passion die of satiety, and then — what? Life 
would be over, a dull blank, a dreary stupor would steep 
the years as they dragged their weary length along to the 
grave, the “ poppied sleep — the end of all.” 

He rose at last, feverish and impatient, and went to the 
window and threw it open to the cool grey dawn. 

“ Would she love me if she knew me as I am ? ” his 
heart seemed to ask, and all his past seemed to rise in 
black and shameful array before his eyes. He had been 
bold and reckless, improvident and careless, pleasure- 
seeking, heedless of pain to others so he obtained his own 
desires, but now, in the cool, sweet calm of this new day, his 
soul seemed to receive a new baptism. His heart trembled 


HIS THOUGHTS. 


63 


within him as if awaiting some supreme moment of his 
destiny, a destiny that he knew would realize the maddest, 
sweetest dream his life had ever known. 

“ She loves me, she loves me ! ” he cried aloud to the 
silence, and the sun rose red and glorious in the sky above, 
and the birds burst into wild glad singing from every 
bough of the dusky trees, and afar off the swell and beat 
of the sea rang out its measured cadence. But even as 
the echo of his triumph died away, his heart grew still with 
fear, for, cold and inexorable as the fate it foredoomed, the 
voice and presence that had ruled his life rose before his 
eyes. 

“ She loves not you, but what she thinks you are. It 
could be only mercy to undeceive her, ere you add 
another crime to the list of many that have stained and 
marked your life.” 

“ What crime,” he asked, with sudden indignation, “is 
there in my love for her ? It is the one pure and true sen- 
timent that my life has known.” 

“ Then tempt her not to danger and destruction. What 
woman has loved you without suffering for that love ? Do 
you not know your own nature yet ? Unstable and selfish to 
the core ; desiring, but to weary of the desire when attained ; 
fascinating, but to repel and break the heart you lure ; 
Swayed by impulse, changeful as the skies of spring, wooing 
ever the beauty that fans the flame of desire, pausing not 
for the happiness, or the welfare, or the peace you wreck in 
each pursuit. Yet, now, I warn you — pause. Another love 
is offered at the shrine where you have laid your own. A 
love, lofty, patient, noble, enduring. Remove but your in- 
fluence, and she is safe. Passion will no longer blind her 
eyes, the magnetism of the senses will cease to attract and 
enthral her nature. Once again, I warn you, for to me 
alone is known the secret of your life ... the secret 
that ever and again throws its chill and baffling shadow 
over you ! Ask not what I mean. The voice that has 
spoken before whispers even now at the door of your 
heart. Shall I tell you what it says? You shudder and 
grow pale ! You do not need another proof of the power 
I wield ? ” 


64 


A VAGABOND LOVER 


“ Are you fiend, or devil ? ” muttered Trevanion hoarsely. 
“ What do you know of me that gives you the right to tor- 
ture me thus ? ” 

“ I know only this,” said the voice mournfully — “ only 
this, that your heart has whispered, and your dreams have 
breathed. You are not as other men ! ” 

For a moment the silence was so deep and so intense, 
that it seemed to Trevanion as if the loud beats of his 
heart were deafening him. Those words — the spoken echo 
of a fear with which he had battled again and again — what 
did they mean ? Sometimes, in the whirl of a mad orgie, 
in the fever of a gambling bout, in the moment of an 
attained and ardent passion, he had heard them. Like a 
knell they had sounded at the door of his heart, chilling, 
terrifying, bewildering. And now another voice gave them 
utterance, and he looked back with a strange and mastering 
dread, into the deep inscrutable eyes that so solemnly gave 
back glance for glance. 

“ In what respect do I differ ? ” he asked at last, and his 
very voice was changed, and seemed to ring out harsh and 
discordant on the still and balmy air of the young day. 

“ The time is not yet ripe for you to hear that truth,” 
said Mandhar Ram solemnly. “Your life has been per- 
mitted to run on in its thoughtless course, but even to the 
most careless and the most material life, there comes an 
hour when it learns the responsibility of its actions, and 
stands face to face with the Self that judges and condemns. 
The wise seize that hour and profit by its teachings, the fool 
scoffs at and passes it by, and buries self-reproach in deeper 
depths of folly — dulling the senses till they cease to sting, 
steeping conscience in some poisoned Lethe that filters 
through the world’s dark valleys. To you that hour has 
come. You, too, may profit by, or reject its warning. See, 
the last star sinks already in the brightening firmament. 
Remember how once before I warned you. Ere that star 
rises once again on the shadowy borders of night you may 
choose between you own selfish will, or another’s wider and 
more perfect happiness. Take from her the spell of your 
presence. Let her know that you never yet resisted a temp- 
tation, or denied a desire, or knew pity for the outcast, or 


HIS THOUGHTS. 


65 


helped the sick and sorrowful. Let her know that in you 
is but self incarnate, without the redeeming spark of divine 
fire that is the one gift impossible to mortal power, or mortal 
knowledge. The scales will fall from her eyes. She will be 
saved. A sadder woman, perhaps, and a humbler one, 
but a woman whose life may be perfected, not spoiled, 
glorified and not marred by the fires of suffering through 
which she must pass.” 

The star sank suddenly into a golden sea of brightness, 
the birds from bough and brake once more burst into song. 
Just for a moment’s space Trevanion covered his eyes with 
his hands, dazzled by the glory and the beauty that sprang 
into birth with the breath of day. 

When he again looked up, he was alone. 

Then a very tempest of emotions seemed to rage and 
swell within him. Impatient of the space that confined him 
he leapt from the window, and, with hurried, frenzied steps, 
betook himself to the sea. 

The roar of the billows, the spray of the ascending foam, 
the wild shrieks of the scattered sea-birds, seemed more in 
harmony with his mood, than the tranquil beauty of fields 
and woodland. But amidst the thunder of breaking waves and 
dashing spray, he seemed only to hear those strange words 
which again and again had chilled and terrified him in the 
years of his boyhood, in the pursuits of youth, the wild 
follies and excesses of manhood — “ You are not as other 
men.” 

In what way did he differ ? Physically he was superior to 
most men. He had a face and form that challenged the 
most critical comparison. His health was splendid, endur- 
ance and strength were knitted in every muscle and limb of 
the strong and supple frame. His intellectual powers were 
brilliant if unstable, his talents numerous and facile. And 
yet there was a difference. He had felt its chill shadow 
again and again, but never had it seemed so chill and terri- 
fying as when it had reached him in the spoken words of 
that strange being who had been the ruler and instructor of 
his early life. The dread that even to his secret soul he had 
never dared to speak, had at last found utterance. He 
knew that his capabilities for evil were vast, and almost 

5 


66 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


devilish. Often in the madness and fierceness of some base 
pursuit it had seemed to him that he was a mere embodi- 
ment of the evil principles of man, and he had shrunk 
appalled from a field of possibilities to which his nature 
held the key. He had met men, even bad and vicious 
men, who yet seemed to have one redeeming virtue, one soft 
spot in the hard and stony fabric of self, but in his secret 
soul he knew he had neither. Only with the first breath of 
a deep and inten e love had a single regretful or remorseful 
thought sprung up from the seedling of a self-acknowledged 
shame. Only when the purity and beauty of true woman- 
hood dawned slowly and surely on the horizon of his life, 
did he perceive how much he had lost, how much he 
might gain, and then sink back ashamed and aghast at 
the unworthiness of the claim he had advanced. 

Love! . . . His love and hers. Could the self-same 

word embody feelings so widely different ? His pulses beat 
feverishly, he remembered the strange thrill that had 
seemed to reach his very heart’s core as those sweet 
warm lips had trembled on his own. Never, never in any 
hour, at any time, had so strange and subtle, and almost 
painful a delight, owed its origin to a woman’s yielded 
kiss. Never — so it seemed to him now — would he ever 
care so to hold another woman to his heart, or seek from 
other lips the mute caress that had granted with so proud 
and tender a grace the promise of a heart’s full and pas- 
sionate love. 

And yet, while the one most perfect dream his life had evei 
known promised its realization, while yet in mingled pride 
and triumph he acknowledged that this eagerly coveted prize 
was won, he had been told to relinquish her to another and 
a worthier love. He lifted his head and shook back the 
curls of hair that clustered thick and soft about his 
brow ; his eyes gleamed bright, daring, defiant, at the wild 
sea and the restless birds. 

How brief a space was life after all to live in and be glad. 
Why should he deny himself this one good and beautiful gift 
that Fate had cast at his feet ? How all other women 
paled by comparison with her. So lovely, so pure, so grand 
and noble of nature, so generous of soul, so true of heart, 


HIS THOUGHTS. 


67 


and she would be his — his very own. His, though he had 
neither rank, nor wealth, nor name, nor fortune fit to mate 
with hers ; though to men who were envious and women who 
were jealous, he was but an adventurer, a vagabond, a 
suitor as unworthy as the beggar at her door, or the 
servitors who took her wages and did her bidding. 

“ They will say that, and more,” he muttered, as his 
brow clouded, and . his eyes darkened with troubled 
thought. “ But what matters it ? she will not listen, and 
I — have I ever heeded the tongues that cavil, and slander, 
and reproach ? Never in all my life when between their 
sound and my desire, they sought to raise a barrier of 
division. Treachery she would not forgive, nor faithless- 
ness, nor untruth ; but by her side and in her arms I could 
swear fidelity, and keep the oath. Base I may have been — 
may ? — nay, why not speak the truth — I have — again and yet 
again — but I have never loved before, and love will teach 
me how to serve, and please, and keep my lady’s heart.” 

He cast aside with resolute strength the memory of that 
warning he had heard, the regrets that had chilled and 
saddened him. 

A flood of joy seemed suddenly let loose in his heart ; 
it filled and intoxicated his every sense. He forgot all, save 
the one fact that she would be his ; body and soul, his — by 
day, by night, through years of chance or change, or bliss 
or sorrow — life of his life — her whole existence surrendered 
to his will and wish. Again the evil side of his strange 
nature claimed the mastery; again passion, triumph, 
desire, asserted themselves and bent him to their will. 
Again, as he had once before defied in the scorn and • 
certainty of his strength, so he defied again the voice that 
warned, the. Fate that threatened; and all the air seemed 
throbbing as his heart throbbed with mad delight, and 
sky and sea and air were only voices echoing the music 
of his own glad song — the song that for all his life might 
be set to the passion and ecstacy of fulfilled desire — “ She 
loves me ! she loves me ! she loves me 1 ” 


CHAPTER XL 
a man’s fidelity! 

A week of happiness. 

It is rare that two mortals can claim such a space of 
time without a shadow on its brightness — a doubt of its 
reality, a fear of its possible extent. But, for one glad 
perfect week, Trevanion and Lady Doris were just as 
deeply, passionately, dreamfully happy, as is possible for 
human lives to be. One had yielded to a love long 
fought against, the other had won a love long fought for. 
Like two combatants exhausted with futile strife, they laid 
down their arms, and were at peace. 

A week — seven golden days of mutual companionship — 
of love and laughter, and song. Seven nights of tired de- 
light and perfect dreams and hopes that only breathed 
“ to-morrow ; ” a week during which each accepted the day 
and the hour and what it brought, undisturbed by the 
morbid terrors of self-analysis. No why or wherefore in* 
truded on that perfect peace ; each gave themselves 
into the arms of the happiness that had offered itself as a 
resting-place, and all unwearied chanted still to the flying, 
silver-shod hours, that untired, untiring song of all earth’s 
children — “ I love ! I love ! ” 

But it could not last ; such hours never do. No single 
act, or sentiment, or event, or emotion of life is stationary. 
On — and ever on — is the watch-cry of destiny. On — on to 
the inexorable end, that again is but the beginning, and yet 
again the end. On — on in the revolving circle of events 
that pass and repass, that die but to be reborn, and yet 
being thus reborn again must die. The life of the body 


A MAN’S FIDELITY! 


and the life of the soul are knit in close and wonderful 
mystery. Each have their season of Life and Dreams, the 
real and the unreal, the sleep and the awaking ; and here 
and there in sleep we stretch out longing arms, crying and 
craving for a little joy, a little peace, a little sunshine ; 
and sometimes our cry is heard, but oftener disregarded, 
or the joy has ashes at its core, and the peace is but the 
re-action of a great sorrow or a frenzied fear, whose very 
intensity brings exhaustion, and the sunshine is but a rift 
in thick black clouds that part to close again in denser 
darkness. 

But this one week of acknowledged and united love 
was as nearly perfect as any faulty and troubled space of 
time could be. Then — it end£d. 

The end was abrupt and unexpected. Trevanion re- 
ceived a summons to London, connected with a certain 
firm of that Chosen Race, whose chief province seems to be 
to fatten on Christian dupes, and charge the maximum of 
interest for the minimum of “accommodation.” 

He could not explain the reason for his absence to Lady 
Doris ; he vaguely described it as “ business,” that useful 
word which, no doubt, Mephistopheles invented for the 
benefit of unfaithful husbands, and wearied lovers. 

Not that Trevanion came under either category, as yet. 
He was, indeed, most irate and indignant at the peremp- 
tory demands of his Hebrew friends, but he knew he 
must obey, lest, indeed, “ a worse thing should come unto 
him.” 

His departure was too sudden for a long leave-taking, 
and it was not much brightened by the news his fiancee 
gave him, that her cousin and Colonel Herbert were making 
a tour in Cornwall, and she had asked them to Porhynna 
for a week or two. 

She drove him to the station herself. She was very 
quiet, and looked very pale. The shock and surprise of 
this sudden parting had saddened her more than its brief 
probability of extent seemed to warrant. “ I hate good- 
byes, ” Trevanion said, abruptly, as he held her hand in 
his, and looked down into the sweet sorrowful depths of 
her beautiful eyes. “Oh, my dearest, you will be true? 


70 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


You won’t forget? You won’t listen to what others say of 
me ? Promise me that.” 

Perhaps her look answered him better than any words. 
He bent his head and kissed the hand he held. 

Five minutes later he was alone. Alone with the 
feverish exultant memories of this one week, throbbing and 
pulsing in his heart. 

****** 

Even to the most devoted and passionate lover the 
strife and movement and pleasures of men come as an 
almost welcome relief from the constant society and 
presence of his beloved. He chafes naturally and im- 
patiently at the silken cord which holds him to her side, 
after a while. “ Je reste , tu fen vas ” is always the woman’s 
cry. She is wise if she has sense enough, and confidence 
enough, to sever the cord whenever its restraint becomes 
manifest — sever it without reproach or blame, but with 
just that one excuse, “ His nature demands it.” 

And so it is. To men sooner than to women comes 
the satiety and fatigue and restlessness which follow the 
fruition of passion. He cannot play, the lover at her 
footstol always, and she would fain assign him that part, 
and that alone, until she herself wearied. But she 
resents the fact that he should weary first, and — he invariably 
does. 

So after the first few hours, where the memory of parting 
had left its sting of regret, Trevanion began to think of the 
allurements and excitements of the city to which he was 
speeding. His business troubles did not affect him now. 
The news of his approaching marriage to the wealthy and 
titled widow of David Marchmont would be enough to make 
every member of the illustrious firm of Isaacs & Co. cringe 
in the dust before him, and become as accommodating 
in the matter of discount and renewal, as now they were 
obstinate in refusal. 

The world would smile on him — society would welcome 
him with open arms, and congratulate him on his good for- 
tune. He might safely promise himself a week of enjoy- 
ment — a week, every day of which would be gladdened 


A man’s .Fidelity i n 

by her letters — the written assurance of that love he had 
won. 

“ She will write beautiful letters, I am sure,” he thought 
to himself. “ Nothing mawkish or sentimental. No sicken- 
ing school-girlish reiteration of terms of endearment. They 
will be like; herself — noble, tender, proud. Easy and un- 
conventional as only perfect taste and perfect culture can 
make' them. I wish it were possible to have the first even 
now.” 

Then he laughed a little, and drew out his cigarette-case, 
and set himself to smoke with laudable perseverance, that 
being a pleasure as yet untouched by satiety. 

* * * * * * 

Trevanion had been right when he told himself that the 
announcement of his approaching marriage would facilitate 
the speedy settlement of debts and obligations — obligations 
so numerous, that even that lucky coup at Monte Carlo could 
not set him straight. 

He had Lady Doris’ permission to announce their engage- 
* ment, and he took good care that Society journals and club 
rooms should learn it without delay. 

It was the fag-end of the season, but enough people were 
in Town to envy, and wonder at, and discuss the news. 

The day a ter his arrival came one of Hilda St. Maur’s 
scented and somewhat arbitrary notes, inviting him to dinner 
that evening. 

He went— for amusement, so he told himself — in truth a 
little flushed and excited with his conquest and the triumph 
it promised. 

He found her alone. Two other guests had been invited, 
but — so she said — had thrown her over at the last moment, 
so there was nothing but a tete-ci-tete evening in prospect. 

The dinner was charming, and Hilda herself looked lovely 
in a dress of the palest sea-toam green, which displayed as 
much of her small and beautifully-shaped personas the laxity 
of fashion would permit. Her red-gold hair was twisted in 
soft loose coils about her head, and a diamond butterfly 
glowed amidst its masses. 

Her eyes sparkled with malice and mischief as she gave 
him her hand and laughed up in his face. 


72 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“Is it true?” she said. “One may be excused for 
doubting, I hope?” 

“ It is quite true,” he said, somewhat stiffly. 

“Well,” she said, “accept my congratulations. They are 
rather one-sided. I confess I do not see what Doris has to 
gain by marriage. But then — I always envy widows.” 

“Do you?” he said. “I think that married women now- 
adays have all the liberty they can possibly desire, even with 
that much-abused incumbrance — a husband.” 

“ It seems impossible to fancy you playing that part,” she 
sad. “Ido not think you are a good subject for matri- 
mony. It will spoil you, and Doris will be exigeante , I 
warn you.” » 

“ Whatever she may be I shall not blame her,” he said. 
“ I feel too much the honour she has done me.” 

“ That is a very courtier and lover-like speech,” she said, 
with her little malicious laugh. “ But in a year you will 
consider the honour merely as a right.” 

Then they went in to dinner, and the conversation touched 
only upon general topics. 

Later on they returned to the little Turkish smoking- 
room, and she threw herself down on a divan covered with 
rich Oriental stuffs, and lighted a cigarette, and watched 
him do the same, while the servant brought in coffee and 
Tokay and set them down on one of the little Moorish 
tables. 

“ Now,” she said, “ tell me frankly, are you very much in 
love ? I should like to know what the sensation is like. I 
have outlived most — but it is always a comfort to meet 
people who haven’t. Doris is one — but then she always 
did take life au grand serienx .” 

“ Have you only asked me here to talk of her ? ” he 
said. 

He knew well enough that nothing bored a woman so 
much as hearing the praises of another from the lips of a 
man who loved her. 

“Not quite,” she said, looking up at him with her spark- 
ling eyes, and then lowering them suddenly as she met his 
gaze. He was standing by her side, looking down at the 
graceful form, in its pose of Oriental abandonment — at the 


A MAN’S FIDELITY 1 


73 


head pillowed on her bare white arm — the snowy softness 
of the throat and bust, that the filmy folds of sea-green 
tulle made a pretence of veiling. 

Something she read in his eyes made her cheeks redden 
and her heart throb. She blew a cloud of smoke with 
petulant pertness into his face. “Don’t look at me like 
that ! ” she said impetuously. “ I am not — Doris.” 

“ My God, no ! ” he muttered hurriedly, as he turned and 
lit the cigarette he had been twisting in his fingers. 

“Pour me out some Tokay,” she said imperiously. 
“You may take some yourself, if you will, unless you are 
under orders against all self-indulgence.” 

He smiled as he obeyed her. “Not yet,” he said. 
“ Doris has laid no commands upon me.” 

“If she had,” she asked softly, “would you obey? 
Somehow I cannot fancy you tamed, or in leading strings 
to any woman.” 

She took the glass from his hand, and looked up again 
into his eyes. Her own were seductive, entreating, 
dangerously soft and lovely in the subdued light of the 
room. 

“ I should obey anything in reason,” he said, conscious 
of the growing ardour of her glance, and a little inclined to 
be angry with himself that he had weakly come into the very 
fire of temptation ; he who never in all his life had resisted, 
or tried to resist one that pleased him. 

“ Supposing,” she said, still more softly, “ that she forbade 
you to — kiss — any other woman ? ” 

He laughed almost brutally. 

“Do you mean yourself, Hilda?” he said. “What are 
you driving at ? If you were not a woman of the world — a 
leader of Society, I might say you had learned your arts of 
provocation in a good school.” 

“ You used to kiss me once,” she said, unabashed by 
his look or tone, which in themselves held scarcely veiled 
insult. 

“ Shall I do so again ? ” he said, and half bent over her, 
and drew' the cigarette from the parted crimson lips. 

Their eyes met in a sudden challenge, sharp and swift as 
meeting swords. She did not speak, only suddenly her 


74 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


whole person seemed to sway towards him, and she 
wound her arms, supple as silk and strong as steel, about his 
neck. 

“ Oh Jack,” she cried passionately, “ I love you ! I 
love you ! You have been cruel to me always — and yet I 
love you as I could not love the kindest and best man in 
the world. Oh, kiss me, Jack — once — just once, and let 

me cheat myself into forgetfulness After to-night 

nothing matters. No — not if the world ends and Hell is 
not a dream but a reality. Give me one grain of com- 
fort for all the misery you have caused me.” 

Just for an instant Trevanion drew himself away ever so 
slightly from the clinging arms, the warm breath, the 
scent of the pale tea-roses that nestled in the white breast 
of his temptress. Just for an instant — between her face and 
his — there flashed the white proud beauty of the woman 
who would be his wife. 

Then the compelling clasp of the slender arms drew him 
nearer — closer. He heard her heart beat — he saw the flash 
of triumph in her eyes. The baseness of impulse and 
desire swayed and shook him as it had done a hundred 
times before, and found him still, as it had found him 
then — powerless to resist what he knew was evil. 

The passionate caress that wooed him to forgetfulness, 
swept like a burning breath over the memory of the one 
pure and perfect love he had ever known. It was tossed 
aside, forgotten, swept utterly away by the tempest that 
broke over all his senses. He did not love this woman — 

he did not care — but all the same 

* * * * * * 

When he returned to his hotel, the first thing that greeted 
his eyes was a letter on the table in his room. He seized 
it eagerly. It was the first letter Lady Doris had written 
him. 

As he read the tender words, as he saw revealed in every 
line the noble trust and purity and faith of its writer, a 
wave of agonized remorse swept over his heart. 

Self-condemned, he stood and confronted his own un- 
worthiness, remembering too late the fidelity he had only 
sworn — to break. 


“HELPLESS.” 


75 


Suddenly he rushed to the window and threw it open, 
and drank in deep draughts of the cool night air, while his 
eyes sought the stars that were shining overhead; the 
self-same stars that gazed on her and heard her prayers for 
him. 

As he gazed, something keen and sharp as bodily anguish 
seemed to tear at his heart, and pulse in his brain. His 
head drooped on his folded arms, and in the silence of the 
room came the sound of a hoarse, choking sob. 

“ My God ! ” he cried aloud. “ What beasts we are — 
and yet — angels love us ! ” 

For indeed it seemed that in comparison with the women 
he had known, who had wooed him or whom he had wooed, 
this one woman stood out as a pure and holy thing, whose 
white robes he had no right to touch, whose heart he had 
no right to claim — of whose love, and faith, and trust, he 
was utterly and for ever unworthy. 


CHAPTER XIL 

“ HELPLESS.” 

“ Repent ! of course she will repent ! ” the Baroness 
Giildenstern was saying, with as near an approach to 
irritation and impertinence as she ever permitted herself. 
“ I never heard of anything so senseless and foolish in my 
life. I think myself, when a woman has had the good 
fortune to be left a widow, wealthy and unencumbered as 
Doris is, she should thank Providence every day of her 
life for the freedom. But to marry such a man as she has 
selected — a nobody, an adventurer, with nothing but a 
handsome face to bring as the ‘ endowment , of which the 
marriage service speaks, and to marry him, too, for that 
most senseless reason of ‘ Love ’ — well, I simply cannot 
find in words an adequate expression of feeling.” 

She looked with her bright, keen eyes at the troubled 
face of her companion, Colonel Herbert, who, with Errol, 
had arrived that afternoon. 

“ Is it quite — settled ? ” he asked. 


76 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


His face was very pale, he kept it in shadow, but the 
woman beside him was clever enough to read more skilfully- 
concealed secrets than the one that was gnawing at his 
strong and faithful heart. 

“ As nearly settled,” she said, “ as such a matter can 
well be, when only the two chief personages are concerned, 
one of whom gives all, and the other takes all. He was 
here every day and all day. They seemed absolutely 
infatuated. I grant he is very charming,” she added, with 
a sigh, “and he filled a difficult position with perfect ease 
and grace.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Colonel Herbert bitterly. “ He has played 
the part of lover too often, and under too many circum- 
stances and conditions, not to be perfect in the role.” 

“ It is a curious fact,” said the Baroness thoughtfully, 
“ that women resent awkwardness and bashfulness on the 
part of a lover, and yet, if they were wise, they would 
welcome the signs as a confession of a comparatively 
pure past. It is the inconstant, the experienced, the 
vicious men who have every art and trick of love-making at 
their fingers’ ends, and to whom every note in the scale of 
protestation, provocation, and devotion, are familiar. How 
odd we are. We appreciate the experience, but we would 
like to abolish the school that teaches it.” 

“A gambler, a duellist, an adventurer, a man whose 
name has been linked with the most notorious women of 
London and Paris — faugh ! such a marriage is sacrilege,” 
muttered Colonel Herbert wrathfully. 

“ Why don’t — you — prevent it ? ” asked the Baroness. 

“I ?” He started and looked at her. “What do 

you mean, madame ? ” he asked unsteadily. 

“ Listen,” she said, and drew nearer to him, and lowered 
her voice almost to a whisper. “I have made it my 
business to find out as much as I can respecting this hand- 
some scapegrace. I find that he has lived at the queer old 
place they call the Hall, with an eccentric piece of 
humanity now in his dotage — his uncle, so he says — and a 
mysterious individual, a sort of modern Zanoni, ever since 
he was five years old. But I have a natural curiosity in the 
matter of pedigree, and I gave myself some trouble to trace 


“ HELPLESS.’ 


77 


the history of the Trevanions. I have ascertained that the 
old man had a brother certainly, but he died when quite a 
lad. He had no other relative ; he was never married 
himself. Who, then, is the individual he calls his 
nephew ? ” 

“ Perhaps,” said Colonel Herbert, “ he is a descendant 
of some branch line, whom he adopted, and to whom he 
gave his name.” 

The Baroness shook her head. “ No,” she said, “I have 
taken good care to find out that. There is one person and 
only one who could enlighten us,” she continued presently. 
“ It is the mysterious Oriental, Mandhar Ram. But 
he is never to be seen, and I scarcely like to beard him 
in his den.” Then she looked sharply up at her companion’s 
pale, grave face. “You — might do it,” she said ; “you and 
Errol. There is no rea on why you should not call — 
no reason why you should not put any questions you deem 
fitting. I only ask you for the results.” 

Colonel Herbert was silent. He remembered his con- 
versation with Errol that June night in Piccadilly ; how they 
had both determined to fathom the mystery about this 
man; to watch him and discover, if only such discovery 
were possible, what was that secret and indescribable 
“ want,” that made him less human even in his sins and 
recklessness than men who had as many vices and as few 
scruples as himself. 

Trevanion’s abrupt disappearance from town, and his 
prolonged stay at Monte Carlo, had for a time baffled their 
intentions. Now — well, now, he told himself, with a heavy 
sigh, that whatever he discovered would probably make 
very little difference. He had won that beautiful prize so 
long and vainly coveted — won, with scarce an effort, what 
he himself would have given years of toil and devotion to 
accomplish. 

“ Do you propose, then, that we should call ; Errol and 
I ? ” h$ said at last. 

“ Yes,” answered the Baroness. “ Errol is a relation, you 
a friend. There is nothing unusual in your making the 
acquaintance of the near relations of the accepted husband 
of Lady Doris Marchmont.” 


78 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


Colonel Herbert winced. The task was not agreeable or 
to his liking, even though he felt curious to see what 
manner of people these were. 

“ I don’t know,” he said, “ if Errol would care about it ; 
but I have no objection to accompany him if he wishes to 
call.” 

“ Oh ! he will care about it,” said the Baroness, nodding 
her head sagaciously. “He is none too pleased with his 
cousin’s choice. I should not mention your intention to 
her,” she added. 

“ I suppose it will make no difference,” said Colonel 
Herbert, with a sigh. “ Ce que femme veut, you know.” 

“ Hush ! ” said the Baroness, “ here she comes ! ” 

****** 

Lady Doris was surprised at herself those first three days 
of Trevanion’s absence. Restless, feverish, impatient, all 
her habitual pride and calmness and content seemed to 
have utterly forsaken her. She longed for some word, 
some sign, though she told herself again and again it was 
almost impossible she could receive a letter yet. 

At last a telegram was handed her. His first sign of 
remembrance for three long days, that to her had seemed 
as weeks. 

It only said : “ Arrived safe . Will write to-morrow .” 

Poor food on which her starved heart must feed for 
another day and night. She was conscious of a keen 
disappointment; she thought in his place she would have 
found means and ways of writing before this. She sighed 
even as she put the message away, thinking how little men 
understood women ; how seldom they seem to remember 
that it is the little things that touch them most deeply, 
and hold them most surely — the unexpected message that 
tells of memory, the remembrance of a flower that was 
worn at the first meeting, of a colour, a scent, a chance 
word, a verse of a song linked to some hour of companion- 
ship that happy chance had yielded ; and as she thought 
Lady Doris was conscious of the first chill and doubt that 
is almost inseparable from absence. She knew that to her 
he was first and all, the only love of her life ; but to him, 


HELPLESS.’ 


79 


what was she? One among many, a memory amidst a 
gallery of memories, a face amidst a crowd of faces ; just 
as fair, just as lovable. He loved her now, but he had loved 
them also — for a time. Perhaps she would share no 
better fate. Her charm for him had lain in unattain- 
ability : she had scorned and refused his love as insult 
once. Alas ! alas ! only to yield in the maturity 
of womanhood when she was free from the shadowy 
claims of honour, and none knew better than herself that 
that honour had been absolutely incapable of mastering her 
heart with the fidelity her lips proclaimed. 

Tears more bitter than any she had ever shed, fell from 
her eyes as she sat alone in her dressing-chamber, waiting, 
longing, hoping for that letter which never came. 

In truth, Trevanion could not write to her ; his lips 
could lie more easily than his pen. Her letter was 
an unending reproach to him, and to answer it with the 
frank spontaneous truth and love it deserved, was a 
sheer impossibility. He had never before granted to 
any woman more fidelity than the attraction she held, or 
the inclination he felt, demanded. But now a vague 
shame and uneasiness troubled him. It was no use to 
use the old arguments — to say as he had so often said 
that the caprice of a moment — the fever and tempting 
of surprised senses — were not infidelity on the part of a 
man. 

Something — something inexorable and painful — had 
awoke in his heart and accused him unceasingly, so that 
he felt afraid to look into those clear and trustful eyes, and 
even at this distance could only spoil sheet after sheet of 
paper in a vain endeavour to answer in some way worthy 
of her, the letter that lay at his heart like a living 
reproach. 

Besides, his temptress was not to be easily shaken off. 
In that respect she differed from most of the women he 
had known, and wearied of. She had disarmed his antagon- 
ism in the very hour when he deemed himself most safe, 
and she was a complete mistress of the arts that allure 
and amuse, and woo mei} to forgetfulness — an adept in the 
science of enchantment, besides possessing those instincts 


80 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


of intrigue and deception which he had always declared to 
be inborn in womanhood. 

Day after day, by some excuse, some plea, she won him 
to her side. 

“ You will have her — always,” she would say, tears stand- 
ing in her large deep eyes, that for him were soft as velvet 
and passionate as an Eastern houri’s. “ Don’t grudge me 
a few hours before it comes to the inevitable. We must 
bow to that — soon.” 

And he submitted, sometimes resentfully, sometimes 
impatiently, sometimes in sheer devilry of some mood 
of wild abandonment, sometimes in the endeavour to 
rid himself of thought and the unusual discomfort of 
self-reproach. Never, by deliberate will, had he given 
himself the trouble to think out the consequences 
or results of any action. He wondered sometimes 
with an irritation and impatience of himself, why he 
should do so now. He loved as he had never loved — 
more worthily, more deeply — but all the same, with him, 
love was a wingless god of earth, who had no power to fly 
to higher or to better things. And so he lingered in the 
Turkish chamber, amidst the lamplight and the laughter, 
and th^ fi Ties of smoke, and the sparkle of Perrier Jouet, 
and the wooing glances, and that gay discursive chatter 
which was amusing enough to please without taxing his 
mental capacity. He felt when he left her that he was a 
coward and untrue, but habit was strong within him and 
conscience he had never heeded ; so slowly and subtly the 
asp folded him in ever-tightening folds, and day drifted 
after day, and the letter for which Lady Doris looked with 
longing feverish eyes, was never written. 

Meanwhile the visit to Trevanion Hall had been paid, 
and Colonel Herbert gratified by sight of the old trembling 
dotard who was Jack Trevanion’s only earthly relative. The 
strange Oriental being, Mandhar Ram, had been present, 
but maintained an almost absolute silence. The two 
visitors were evidently unwelcome and, as Colonel Herbert 
told the Baroness, gained nothing for their trouble. 

“ He will have the Hall at the old man’s death,” he 
said in conclusion. “ That is all he brings in return for the 


A LOVE-LETTER. 


81 


rank and beauty and princely fortune he will gain. Truly, 
a fair exchange ! ” 

“ It is not a marriage for her, of course,” said the Baroness. 
“ But what is the use of saying so ? To try and set a 
woman against a man is only the surest way of deepening 
her infatuation, and enlisting her sympathy. She' knows 
all the stories about him, and she is a very pure and very 
proud woman, and yet she loves him as though he were a 
Sir Galahad.” 

Colonel Herbert turned away. His lips trembled under 
the shade of their thick moustache. Those words struck 
sharp and keen as pain to his heart. She loved him — 
what use to trouble, to plead, to try to avert her fate ? 

In those three words all was said. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A LOVE-LETTER. 

The days dragged their slow length along and Lady Doris 
lived her usual life, and walked, and rode, and drove, and 
played the hostess to her friends, but each day seemed to 
burn a new sensation into her heart. She learnt the agony 
of a vain expectation, the sickening torture of suspense, 
the impulses of a passionate wonder and indignation, the 
regret of wounded pride ; she, who had been so proud and 
self-contained, now only crept away to solitude, to hide the 
emotion and humiliation of each day’s disappointment. 
She would not let anyone know or see that humiliation, 
but it ate deeply into her nature, and its corroding touch 
made her hard and bitter, and passionately angered, so that 
at times she hardly knew herself. 

At the end of that week he had promised to return, but 
he sent no word to that effect now. 

No one spoke his name. Her cousin was too deeply 
annoyed at the intended alliance to do more than express 
cold disapprobation. The Baroness, her friend, had more 
than hinted at the folly of her infatuation. Colonel 


82 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


Herbert looked careworn and gloomy, and his eyes had a 
pained and wistful entreaty in their kind grave depths 
that moved her sometimes almost to tears, for now she 
knew that love held suffering and endurance, as well as joy 
and content. 

“ I wish he did not care,” she said, impatiently, as she 
sat alone in her room. 

Then her thoughts reverted again to that absent and 
unsatisfactory lover, trying still to surround him with the 
false halo of perfection she had been blind enough to 
bestow, closing her eyes with a woman’s wilfulness to the 
facts of a past vitiated by low aims, and coarse pleasures, 
and evil influences ; things which might so easily resume 
their sway over an impressionable temperament and force 
him once again backwards and downwards into the depths 
from which her love had sought to raise him. 

“ Seven days, seven nights, “ she sighed wearily, “ and 
no word, no sign. Has he forgotten ? Is this his faith and 
truth ? ” 

She, herself, looked worn and pale with many vigils 
and much weariness. Nervous and dispirited, she leant her 
head on her arms, and let the slow and bitter tears roll un- 
heeded and unchecked down her pale face. 

As a stone falls on a wayside flower, crushing and 
bruising the delicate petals, so fell this first weight of doubt 
and fear on her heart. She had listened to no warning ; 
she had believed in him, and in his love ; and now, he 
seemed to proclaim the unworthiness of both with an 
indifference that was almost contemptuous. As she thought 
of her letter so long unanswered, of the self-betrayal in 
its every line, the love and trust it had breathed, the 
longings that even that brief absence had been long 
enough to awaken — her heart seemed to grow cold with 
hurt pride, her face flushed with hot and bitter shame. 
Never in all her life, never to any human creature, man or 
woman, had she so unbent and so unveiled the pure and 
passionate and secret depths of her nature, and she had 
done this to one who seemed neither to care, nor to 
understand, nor respond to it. 

The agonizing humility of this hour exceeded that of 


A LOVE-LETTER. 


83 


all the other hours that had preceded it. Her belief in 
him had received the first rude shock of doubt, and though 
security sometimes weakens the force of passion, as the 
fulness of sunshine melts the firm adhesion of the snow, 
yet security is none the less the most divine and perfect 
part of love to a nature noble and trustful and generous 
such as hers. * 

While still she sat there — her face bent on her hands, 
the hot tears falling through the clasped and slender 
fingers — the same strange feeling seemed to creep slowly 
and chillingly over her that once before had seemed as a 
dream. Again, a shadowy and indistinct Presence shaped 
itself slowly out of the gloom, and again a voice, faint and 
dream-like, yet audible as human speech, seemed to sound 
to her inner senses , less than to her ordinary powers of 
hearing. 

She did not feel startled or alarmed, only a dull and 
dreamy apathy stole over her whole frame, and wrapped 
her troubled heart and tortured feelings in a deep and 
intense calm. “ I warned you,” the voice said, in its calm, 
even accents. Has not my warning been fulfilled ? What 
has this love given you? — pain, doubt, unrest. You stoop, 
but it cannot rise — you would fain endow it with the 
qualities of your own — it is a vain task. None can give 
more than is in them. Fidelity and strength are not in 
your lover, and though you strove and laboured all the 
years of your life, though you sacrificed every glad and 
holy thing you possessed, you could not pour into his 
heart one single drop of the pure and perfect tenderness 
that fills your own. In his way, he loves you, but in that 
way he has loved so many, and you only one — only 
him ! . . . ” 

“ Only him ! ” her heart seemed to echo, in the sorrow 
of a sob that fell across the silence, and remembering the 
years of struggle and of pain, the long effort at banishing a 
memory which would not be banished, she cried in bitter- 
ness of heart, “ Oh ! my love, my love ! what you have 
cost me ! ” 

Those years when he had been as her shadow, those 
years when he had followed and besought her with subtlest 

6 * 


84 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


temptings of unuttered passion, the anger and revolt that 
had given her courage and strength to banish him — all 
these things rushed back to her memory now, and over- 
whelmed her as a flood of bitter waters. He was not worth 
a tithe of the love she had given him, the fidelity she had 
sworn in her heart, the trust and tenderness that had laid 
their rich tributes at his feet. No; but, for all that, she 
could not recall the love, forswear the fidelity, take back 
the tenderness. 

Her face drooped lower in the abandonment of grief, her 
eyes closed beneath the weight of tears that burned the 
veined and swollen lids, yet still she seemed to hear that 
calm still voice, as with unerring accuracy it painted the 
future, whose avenging miseries she wilfully ignored. Still 
her heart cried out to the silence of the night, “ All my 
life has been cold and loveless, and now love has come to 
me, and I cannot banish it even if I would ! ” 

And now the stillness and the silence were unstirred by 
any warning voice, and she knew she was alone. 

#*#**•* 

She rose next day calm and pale, but with a gentleness 
and wistfulness about her that was altogether new and 
infinitely touching in one so proud. 

“After all,” she s^iid to herself, “a week is not so very 
long, and to him, engrossed with business and troubled and 
worried about many things, it might have slipped by so 
quickly.” 

Besides, he was not by nature a man to be very con- 
siderate of minute attentions, and he had told her he 
detested writing letters. She could not expect to alter his 
character and inclinations. Circumstances had shaped 
them long ago, and against the strength of nature even love 
is powerless. You cannot alter it. 

So another day, and yet another, drifted by, to fall into 
the lap of the past, but with the tenth a letter came. 

She was alone in her own boudoir when it was brought 
to her. Many disappointments made her chary of looking 
at the superscription until the servant had left the room. 
Then — it almost seemed to her worth the pain of waiting 


A LOVE-LETTER. 


86 


and suspense, to feel that rush of emotion, that wild joy, 
that passionate delight, sweeping through heart and soul, 
and pulsing like a full tide in her veins. She knew the bold, 
clear handwriting so well ! She tore open the envelope, 
and held the thick soft paper between her trembling palms. 
She could scarcely see the words, so great was her agitation. 
For one swift instant she carried to her heart and lips the. 
paper that his hands had touched, and his eyes rested upon 
Then she began to read : 

“I hardly know how to begin this 'letter. You will 
think I ought to have written long before this, and after 

yours . My dearest, I can’t thank you enough for its 

sweet words, but oh ! don’t, don’t, don't make a hero of 
me. Don’t idealize me into anything better or worthier 
than I am, a faulty, graceless man, to whom an angel of 
purity and tenderness has stooped. What use to say I 
miss you ? and yet I cannot return as soon as I expected. I 
may have to go to Paris next week ; not for long — five or 
six days at most, but still they cut into time, and it is 
already almost a fortnight since I saw you. I will wire if I 
go, and give you the address of my hotel. Meanwhile, my 
beautiful queen, grant a thought sometimes to the unworthy 
memory of 

“Your Graceless Lover.” 

The effect of the letter upon her was somewhat contra- 
dictory. It was too short ; it was too abrupt. It did not 
once say, “ I love you.” It gave no response to her own 
words — the passionate, almost humble tenderness of those 
closely-covered sheets she had penned with such hopeful 
trust and delight. Then it spoke of longer absence 
— further delay ; but it gave no description of his life, 
doings, or occupations. No ; on the whole it could 
not be considered a satisfactory love-letter, and yet 
for its brief contents she had had to wait ten long weary 
days. - 

That dull pain of dissatisfaction which so often follows a 
falsified expectance crept over her heart now. She placed 


86 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


the letter on the table by her side, and a little strange, 
mirthless laugh escaped her. 

“ Make him a hero” — “ idealize him into anything better, 
worthier” — so the thoughts ran hither and thither through 
her mind, slowly and painfully. Those written words 
seemed to bring to her a consciousness that the writer’s 
own personal fascination had never brought — a sense of 
shallowness, untrustworthiness — the feeling that this was no 
nature to lean on for strength or help, or even com- 
prehension. 

She took the letter up again and replaced it in its envelope 
without reading it a second time. There was no need, she 
remembered it well enough. Was it worth while todiave so 
longed, so prayed, so suffered, only for this? Had the man 
she loved no deeper insight into her nature than to furnish 
her with such cold comfort? No word of what had been ! 
No hint of joys in the future. Not anything she had ex- 
pected. Not anything for which she had hoped. 

She rose and slowly paced the room, trying to stifle the 
dull foreboding that oppressed her, trying to believe that 
the world was right when it said, “Women must never 
expect more from men than they choose to give, though 
men may expect from women all that they choose to ask.” 

She had been weak, she knew, but that weakness had 
never seemed to her so unwise as it looked now, and like a 
sudden revelation she saw that the coarseness of that rough 
mould in which man is cast, might render him incapable of 
either comprehending or appreciating the delicacy or con- 
stancy of a love which he knew was too surely his own. 

She had loved with the love of a poet — a dreamer ; and 
he — with the trivial passion of the world. 

Suddenly, cruelly, as pain smites and is cruel, Lady 
Doris felt this like a spoken truth. She locked her letter 
safely in a drawer. There was no need to reply to it, and 
he had not asked for any. Then she went to her dressing- 
room and put on her hat and coat, and took her way down 
the broad staircase into the hall. 

The Baroness was there, and, seeing her, came hurriedly 
towards her. “ My dear,” she said, “ I have had bad news. 
I was coming to seek you. My sister has been taken 


A LOVE-LETTER. 


87 


seriously ill. She was on her way to England, but has had 
to stop in Paris. I must go to her, at once — to-night, if I 
can manage it.” 

“To Paris?” faltered Lady Doris. 

“ Yes ; why how startled you look ! I am sorry to leave 
you, and it will be so lonely for you. You would not care 
to come with me, I suppose? Your cousin leaves to-day, 
there is nothing to prevent you, unless ” 

She paused meaningly. 

Lady Doris flushed as she met her glance and read the 
unuttered sentence. 

“ No,” she said slowly, “ there is nothing to prevent me. 
I — I will come.” 

“ Do you mean it — really ? ” asked her friend, somewhat 
surprised at the unexpected acquiescence.” 

“Yes,” she said, “I mean it, I think I am tired of 
Cornwall, and though Paris will be hot and empty, still, it 
is always Paris.” 

“ I shall be delighted to have you,” said the Baroness. 

She was thinking to herself : “ How calmly she takes the 
idea. Have they quarrelled already ? ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“the ending of a dream.” 

In a hurried, feverish way Lady Doris made her prepara- 
tions. Her acceptance of the idea had been as sudden as 
its suggestion. She could not account for the impulse. It 
was altogether unlike her to be capricious or act at random. 
Yet now she felt she must seize this chance. Why, it would 
be sweeter, happier for her, only to breathe the same air, 
only to know the same city held her that held him, than to 
live in this desolate, wind-blown solitude, which was filled 
with memories that absence seemed to chill and falsify. 

It was not that she suspected, it was not that she feared 
his truth. Her wildest dreams could never have shown him 
to her acting as he had acted — sinning as he had sinned. She 
only saw that a chain of ’circumstances were holding him 
apart and aloof, and that chance had offered her a reasonable 
excuse for breaking that chain. 

“ He will be so surprised,” she thought to herself, and for 
a moment a little happy smile hovered round her lips. She 
was standing in the quaint old library of this old Cornish 
mansion, the room where he had sat with her so often during 
that one brief happy week. 

Her eyes lingered lovingly on the oak bookcases, the low, 
deep chairs, the great bowls of gorgeous autumn flowers, the 
wide, open fireplace, where a great log burned itself to ashes 
in the chilly dusk. 

The memories of that passionate, fervid wooing, swept 
over her like a hot breath. Words, sighs, vows, kisses, the 
tenderness of looks eloquent of meaning, the story of days 
and months passed in vain longings, and now replaced by 


“THE ENDING OF A DREAM* 


89 


that vague, sweet awakening to an almost unhoped-for joy, 
which is one of the most precious gifts of happiness. 

Of all this she thought as she lingered there, saying fare- 
well to the inanimate things that were, for her, so eloquent 
of meaning. Yet, even as she lingered, a certain chill and 
sense of fear seemed to come over her. The scent of the 
autumn flowers in the great china bowds, the far-off throb 
of the sea, the twittering song of a little wren, perched on a 
tree outside the w'indows, the loud barking of the dogs as 
they dashed out of the stable yard at Errol’s call — all these 
things suddenly seemed to leap into that strong light of a 
never-to-be-forgotten memory, which at times paints with 
cruel distinctness its undying colours on the brain. 

She shuddered as she turned away and closed the door, 
for even then, while hope whispered gladly of a coming 
meeting, something, clear and distinct as spoken words, 
murmured at her ear, that in that room she and her lover 
would stand face to face, and heart to heart, never — never 
again ! 

In Paris, the world of fashion had taken wing, and dis- 
persed to country houses and foreign baths. But to Lady 
Doris it would not have mattered had it been a veritable 
desert. He was there — she might see him at any hour, in 
any place. Her heart had no room for any other thought. 

She wondered sometimes at herself, wondered at the 
power and strength of this magnetism of love, which had so 
changed her calm and quiet nature — wondered that she 
should thrill and tremble, and grow pale, even at the echo of 
a step, the chance likeness of some face or figure which 
answered to the expectation of her heart. 

One afternoon t. .e Baroness suggested that they should 
go for a drive. Her sister was much better. She could 
leave her with the nurse for a couple of hours, so she 
ordered a pair-horsed victoria, and bade the coachman drive 
them to the Bois. 

It was fairly crowded, in spite of the “emptiness” of 
Paris. Wealthy Americans, foreign tourists, a sprinkling of 
English folk to whom Paris was a place for all seasons, and 
that intermediate class of Society which hangs on the social 


90 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


fringe of “ Monde,” and cannot boast of country chateaux , 
or even of invitations to those owned by wealthy and titled 
friends, were driving and walking around the familiar lake. 
The sun was setting in a sky of faint primrose, touched 
here and there by fleecy lines of clouds. Lady Doris 
glanced mechanically at the moving vehicles in front of her, 
at the bright flash of wheels, the blue and orange panels, 
the gaudy facings of some dashing livery favoured by a 
fashionable actress, or a celebrity of the de?ni-monde . 

She leant back and drew the dark furs of the carriage-rug 
about her. The air was growing chilly, and the last rays of 
the sinking sun threw faint golden reflections across the 
leafless boughs of the trees, and the dark belt of the shrub- 
beries beyond. The carriages began to move more rapidly. 
The beat of many hoofs sounded sharp and clear on the still 
October air. Suddenly a dashing little coupe passed them. 
As Lady Doris’ eyes caught sight of its occupants she 
started, and leaned eagerly forward. Then — as quickly she 
leaned back in her seat, her face white as death, her heart 
beating so wildly it seemed to suffocate her ; in her ears a 
clamour and clang as of a million brazen hammers. 

In that coupe she had recognised her lover, and close by 
his side, her hand resting on his knee, her laughing, riant e , 
mischievous face upraised to his, sat — Hilda St. Maur. 

For one brief moment she was conscious of nothing but 
the anger and indignation of offended pride. So this was 
the important business that had taken him to Paris ! 
This the plea for which she was to excuse his absence. A 
sickening spasm of pain seemed to suffocate her. 

The sound of her friend’s voice seemed to reach her 
from afar : “ My dear, are you ill ? You look so pale.” 

“Yes,” she said hurriedly; “I — I think I have taken a 
chill. It is so cold here after suuset.” 

She shivered violently even under the warm furs. It 
seemed to her that never again would warmth or life creep 
back into her frozen veins, or gladden her with any sense 
of its existence. 

“ Here — and with her ! ” That was all she could say. 
Her face looked changed and old and bloodless in the dim 
light, but she knew only that all the youth and hope and 


THE ENDING OF A DREAM.’ 


91 


promise of. her life had been stricken and laid low by the 
first breath of a man’s treachery and deception. 

She had so loved, so trusted him, and this was how he 
repaid her. No mere accident could have brought those 
two together in that comradeship of familiarity. He who 
had vowed that henceforth all women should be as nothing 
to him for her sake — that never should his lips touch other 
lips — yet was now by the side and in the society of a woman 
whose fascinations were an acknowledged danger, and who 
had never made any secret of her infatuation for him. 

When she reached the Hotel she went straight to her 
room, refusing all suggestions of tea, or sal volatile , or 
such like remedies for female ailments, on the part of the 
Baroness. 

She flung off her wraps and her dress, and threw herself 
on the bed in a sudden abandonment of grief and anguish, 
and jealous pain, that no tears could relieve. Her face 
burned, her pulses beat. It seemed to her more than she 
had strength to do, to wait in patience and silence till she 
should learn the truth from his own lips. 

When at last she rose and bathed her eyes and rang 
for her maid, she was shocked at the sight of her own 
face. 

The woman brought her a letter forwarded from England. 
As she opened it, an enclosure, in a pale yellow envelope, 
fell out. It was the telegram containing Trevanion’s 
promised address. Eagerly she tore it open, and read its 
brief message. 

“ Fear 1 may be detained a week or so. Address , Hotel 
Bristol , Paris . — Yours , J. T.” 

She crushed the paper in her hand in a sudden revulsion 
of feeling. The Hotel Bristol was her own hotel. He 
was here — under the same roof as herself ! 

By the time her toilette was finished she had assumed 
her usual composure of manner. She bade her maid ask 
the hotel porter for the number of the room which Tre- 
vanion occupied, and to let her know whether he was in the 
hotel. In about ten minutes’ time the woman returned 


92 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


with the information that the room was 107, and that 
Mr. Trevanion had just come in, but was going out to 
dinner. 

Lady Doris went to her writing table and wrote a few 
lines, placed the note in an envelope, and bade her woman 
see that it was taken to Room 107 at once. Then she 
went down stairs to their private sitting-room, and awaited 
calmly, though with beating heart, the answer to her 
summons. 

She had not to wait long. Soon the door was thrown 
hurriedly open, and one of the attendants announced her 
lover. 

He entered hurriedly, with a certain sense of wonder and 
surprise in the handsome face and eager eyes that met her 
own. 

“Why, Doris, my darling/’ he cried, “whatever brought 
you to Paris ? ” 

Then something in her face — her look — startled him. 
The hands he had outstretched fell to his side, the words 
he would have spoken seemed to die, strangled and dumb, 
on his lips. She saw his face pale, his eyes fall before the 
challenge of her searching gaze, and it seemed to her that 
life died out of her heart in the swift, sharp pain which told 
her of suspicion answered. 

“ I saw you this afternoon,” she said very quietly. “ May 
I ask what — business — has also brought Mrs. St. Maur to 
Paris ? ” 

He stared at her, stupefied, and angered, and ashamed. 

“ You — you saw me,” he muttered. “ Well, what of 
that ? We met by — by chance, and she is alone here. 
Surely, Doris, you are not one of those silly women who 
get jealous about the merest trifles ! ” 

The words cut her to the heart. The lesser nature could 
not comprehend, could not even defend itself. It could 
only stoop to the meanness of subterfuge, and recrimina- 
tion. 

She seated herself quietly by the table, and signed to 
him to take a chair. 

“I think,” she said, “it would be wiser for you to 
be open with me at the first. I have no right, of course, 


“THE ENDING OF A DREAM. 0 


93 


to control your actions, or even to question them, but I 
have a right to hear truth from you, and that, I fear, you 
have not told me.” 

His face grew sullen, his eyes dark and stormy. To 
any other woman he would have spoken rudely and roughly, 
as is the way of a man who hates to be arraigned for 
wrong-doing, or called to account for unveracity ; but to 
her, he dared not. 

“ I have been false ; I am not what she thinks me,” his 
heart had said again and again during those wasted weeks, 
and now that he was in her presence, that the calm grave 
eyes looked back to his, that the proud lips demanded 
truth from his own, and not caresses, he felt that this 
woman could not be dealt with as the “others” had 
been. 

Almost he wished now he had never seen her, never 
loved her. He felt a coward and ashamed, and excuses 
and lies faltered and stammered on his tongue before that 
proud unwavering glance. 

“ I cannot understand what you mean,” he said, at last, 
in impatience and confusion. “ I told you the truth. I 
had business in Paris. If — if I met an old friend, and she 
drove me in her coup'e for an hour, is that a sin ? ” 

Lady Doris’ face grew colder and prouder than before. 
She looked at the handsome figure in its faultless evening 
dress, at the frowning brow, the clouded eyes, and her 
heart grew cold and sick within her breast. 

“A sin? No,” she said, gently, “if, as you say, you 
only met her by chance. But — the attitude in which I saw 
you both was somewhat familiar, even for old friends — 
scarcely one, I fancy, in which you would care to see your 
wife and — any other man.” 

He looked at her, and a smile replaced the frown. “ My 
darling,” he said, “I thought you were too perfect a 
woman for jealousy !” 

That word stung and irritated her as no other could 
have done. “ Oh ! ” she cried, with sudden passion, 
“how little you understand! Jealous! No; that is a 
word that lowers one to suspicion, and intrigue, and 
distrust.” 


94 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“ Yet you followed me here ? ” he said, and could have 
cut his tongue out the instant he said it. 

“ You can think — that,” she said, and rose slowly to her 
feet, and looked at him with so grand and queenly a 
disdain that he felt ashamed and repentant, and could have 
thrown himself at her feet in his bitter remorse. “ I am not 
jealous,” she said steadily and coldly, and a deep flush 
rose to her cheeks and seemed to scorch their delicate 
pallor, “ and still less would I be guilty of the meanness of 
spying on any man’s actions ; but without perfect trust and 
perfect truth, there cannot be perfect love. Perhaps it is 
as well to find out ofir mistake now ; it is an easy one to 
remedy.” 

She drew the ring off her finger — the betrothal ring he 
had placed there in the library of Porhynna. 

The full meaning of the action — of all he had gained, 
all he would lose — flashed rapidly before him. “ Doris,” 
he cried, “ you can’t mean it ! — you don’t mean it ! Is 
this your love ? ” 

For a moment her calmness forsook her, her lips 
quivered, the colour left her cheek. Then, with an effort, 
she controlled herself again. 

“ Tell me one thing,” she said. “ Were you with her in 
London ? ” 

He would have given the world to be able to tell a lie 
then ; but, for once, the glibness and ease with which he 
usually evaded a disagreeable truth, forsook him. 

“Yes,” he muttered, sullenly. 

“ I might have known,” she said, and turned aside for a 
moment to hide the bitter tears that sprang into her eyes. 
So for this she had suffered and grieved and waited in that 
hateful agony of suspense; for this her letter had been 
ignored and unanswered ; for this — that he might amuse 
himself with a Vain and shallow intriguante , who scarcely 
even cared to hide her fancy of the hour. 

“ Is that too hard a thing to forgive ? ” he asked, with 
sudden humility. “ Dear, believe me, I hated myself for 
my folly ; I hated her for her tempting ; but men are fools 
you know — and I — I always told you I was no hero.” 

“ Oh ! hush ! hush ! ” she cried, as if his words hurt 


“THE ENDING- OF A DREAM.’ 


95 


her ; and indeed they did. “ A hero ! God knows I never 
expected you to be that ! I only thought of you as a man 
with some self-respect, some notion of honour and fidelity. 
But you have shown you possess neither. Only one week 
away from me, and already another to take my place.” 

“By Heaven! No!” he cried, stormily, “not your 
place, I swear! You are a woman of the world; you 
know what men are ; tempted, allured by their baser 
nature, even if true at heart ! ” 

“True — at heart ! ” she echoed, bitterly. “Is that what 
you call your elf? Your notion of truth must be very 
different to mine.” 

He threw himself at her feet, and clasped the folds of 
her gown. “ I am not worthy of you ! I always told you 
that,” he cried, in sudden bitterness of humiliation. 
“ But oh, Doris, forgive me ! Indeed, indeed, my love 
for you has never wavered. You cannot call that brief 
straying of the senses — infidelity. I swear to you I will 
never see her again, if you desire it.” 

She drew the velvet folds away from his hands, and 
signed to him to rise as a queen might have signed to a 
penitent and forgiven subject. “Listen,” she said. “A 
fidelity that is exacted , ceases to be fidelity. I trusted you, 
and you lied to me. If I forgave and took you back, that 
lie and that sin of youis would be always between us; its 
memory would poison all my peace. I could not forget, 
even if I forgave. You must blame my nature, even as you 
bid me blame yours. We have made a mistake, you and I. 
It is better to discover and own it now. Later, it might 
have been — too late.” 

She spoke quite calmly and gently. He had no suspicion 
of the humiliation her proud heart suffered, of the sense of 
outrage and dishonour that stung her afresh with every 
fresh effort at extenuation his lips framed. She only longed 
to be alone, to be quit of his presence, which bore the 
stamp and seal of another woman’s passion, which held the 
shame and treachery of her kiss and her embrace. All 
that had been sacred to herself, the love that had looked so 
beautiful and holy a thing, now seemed nothing purer 

or better than the sport of a man’s idle passions, and 
✓ 


96 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


forsworn faith. As she looked at him where he knelt at 
her feet, she only said to herself: “There, too, lies my 
trust and faith in man’s honour,” and something like im- 
patience and disgust swept over her previous calm, and 
made itself felt in look and tone. 

“Do not let me detain you,” she said. “You have some 
engagement, I see by your dress, and I think there is no 
need to say more. No doubt your error is a venial . one, 
as the world judges. No doubt another woman would 
excuse and forgive. But I am not — quite — like other 
women. I told you that long ago, if you remember, and I 
think it would be wiser and better for us both to forget 
what, after all, was only the idyll of a week — to you” 

He rose then, stung to the quick by the contempt of her 
voice, the disgust of her face.- Yet in her pain she was 
scarcely conscious of how she pained him. She only 
longed to be free of his presence ; to be alone, and think 
out for herself the possible results of her action. 

“ Am I to understand,” he said huskily, “ that you wish 
to be — free ? ” 

“From falsehood and treachery — yes,” she said, and her 
voice was cold as pride and contempt — of him, of her rival, 
of herself - could make it. 

He bowed. He was bitterly hurt and offended — he, 
who in all his light and easy conquests and victorious life 
had never been arraigned, or unforgiven by any woman. 

“ I — I asked for your patience once,” he said ; “ I asked 
for your pardon to-night. It is the first time I have asked for 
either from man or woman. This — this woman is nothing 
to me. My love for you has never wavered ; only — one is 
not always master of oneself, but, of course, you cannot 
believe, you cannot understand. I do not blame you.” 

“ It would be strange,” she said, “if you could.” 

His cheek reddened slightly. “You are too good a 
woman for your time — your age,” he said. “ I — I have 
lived in a world that is only a temple of lies and shams and 
broken faiths, and cheated honour. Doubtless you are 
right. I am utterly unworthy, only, believe it or not, I love 
you as I have never loved any other woman.” 

“A love that cannot give even one week’s fidelity, is 


97 


“THE ENDING 0 E .1 DREAM.” 

scarce deserving of the name, I think,” she said. “ But 
why waste time in arguments ? We have said all it is need- 
ful to say. Go to her ; she will console you as she has 
consoled you before, if indeed, you need — consolation.” 

She moved away ; with those last words severing the tie 
that had bound them, as ruthlessly and as utterly as steel 
might sever a skein of silk. 

His face grew white as death. He said not a word, only 
bent his head and passed from the room, and from her 
sight. 

Before her on the table glittered and sparkled the ring 
she had placed there, the ring he had slipped on her slender 
white finger with a kiss, and a whisper of the marriage circlet 
that should so soon replace it. 

As the door closed, her eye fell on it. She snatched it 
up, and obeying an impulse as unlike herself as it was pas- 
sionate and — womanly, tossed the shining bauble into the 
heart of the bright wood fire. 

“ So ends my dream 1 ” she said. 



7 


CHAPTER XV. 


“AND WITH YOU — PEACE.” 

The night had fallen, dark with wind and rain, and black 
storm clouds that gathered thick and ominous in the 
west. On the wild Cornish coast there sounded only the 
echoing thunders of the mad sea, tearing itself into shreds 
of spray against the frowning headlands. 

The old Hall of Trevanion rocked in the blast, and the 
wind tore at its ivied porch and shook its shuttered win- 
dows, and dashed the rain drops like pellets against the 
closed door. Its two strange inmates sat together over 
a fire of dull peat. The vast room was but dimly lit, and 
felt chilly and damp in the dreary autumn night. Both 
seemed wrapped in thought, and heeded neither storm, nor 
blast, nor thundering wave. Habit had accustomed them 
to such outbreaks of nature, or perhaps they were both too 
far advanced in the pursuit of mysticism, and the problems 
of invisible worlds, to heed their own more immediate 
surroundings. 

The dark, inscrutable face and glowing eyes of Mandhar 
Ram were fastened on the dull glow of firelight. His 
hands were crossed upon his breast, his figure looked as if 
carved in stone, so still it was and rigid. 

Presently the old man lifted his head and looked across 
at his silent companion. 

“Will he come — to-night?” he asked. 

“ Yes,” said the Oriental. “ He is almost here — now. 
Have you decided to tell him the truth at last ?” 

“ It was you who bade me tell him,” the old man said 
complainingly. “I see no use — what purpose can it 
serve ? ” 


“AND WITH \ OU— PEACE.' 


99 


“ He will insist on being told ; he comes here solely for 
that reason. It is as well he should know. You were so 
proud of your discovery, you would not believe my warn- 
ings; now you have seen what man alone can make of 
man — a thing of impulses, passions, follies and ungovern- 
able desires. Were it not that I know only too well the 
transitory nature of physical life, that it is merely a shadow 
flitting through a series of events, I would not have 
consented to an experiment which has produced such dire 
results.” 

“ He was well enough while he was with us,” the old man 
muttered gloomily. 

“True, but the feelings and desires that make a student 
were wanting, and with every year of advancing manhood 
the evil impulses of the lower nature acquired increasing 
ascendancy. You are a great scientist, my friend, and 
all your days and all your life have been spent in the pur- 
suit of wisdom. You have learned so much, that nature 
seemed to hold no secrets into which you could not 
pierce; the cause and generation of life, the principles 
and elements of the body, the whole complex mystery 
of the physical formation of man was to you a simple and 
perfectly practical pursuit, such as any other branch of 
physical science. How proud you were, how triumphant, 
how determined to find a subject for experiment. No 
use to warn, no use to caution. To you Life meant 
nothing but the vital spark which makes the blood flow, 
the limbs move, the heart beat, the brain act. What said I, 
years ago, when accident favoured your design, and the sea 
yielded up its prey and, unknown because unsuspected, 
you had before you and in your power that empty shell 
of humanity into whose cold veins you might pour life 
afresh ? ” 

“ I poured it,” cried the old man, his eyes brightening 
with sudden rapture. “ Success was mine at last. What 
mattered years of study and of toil, what mattered loss of 
youth and health ? Alone, unaided, I had mastered the 
great secret. For me the dead lived, for me the living arose 
— spoke — moved — became a being even as I myself, instead 
of the cold corruption I had rescued.” 


100 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


“ Hush !” cried the Oriental, warningly, his eyes flashing 
suddenly into the gloom beyond. 

Unseen, unheard, a figure had entered through the 
curtained doorway, and now advanced towards them both. 

“ I came but to ask you a question,” he* said, unheeding the 
feeble hand outstretched in welcome. “ But it is answered 
ere I ask it. When I said to Mandhar Ram a few months 
ago, ‘ In what respect do I differ from my fellow-man ? ' he 
refused to answer me. Now — I have learnt the reason. I 
do not know whether you consider the gift you bestowed 
upon me is worth the trouble and toil of the long years that 
antedated its discovery, but as the result of the experiment 
I 'am inclined to say — not. Life, actual physical life, has its 
charms no doubt ; the bird on its bough, the free creatures 
of the desert, the fish in the depths of its ocean home — all 
these shared in common with me the light and the air, and 
the beauty of the world in which they found themselves. 
Like them I enjoyed, and questioned neither cause nor con- 
tinuance of enjoyment. But I am like them no longer. The 
dim suspicions that had crossed me, the knowledge of a 
growing tendency to evil — the debasing power and strength 
of passions that were like unchained devils in my soul, all 
these asserted themselves at one and the same moment, and 
in their strength and power I learnt — myself. While yet 
that strength lasted, while yet the kingship and the lordship 
of that mighty force whirled me like a leaf on its wild 
torrent, I stood alone in the black midnight of a darkness 
that mortals scarce conceive. Out of its depths and in its 
fearful vaults I only saw shapes of terror, I only heard 
voices of fiends, and in my misery I cursed my fate, and 
cursed the woman who had tempted me, and on her head I 
called down vengeance for all that she had robbed me of — the 

one pure feeling my heart had ever known ” 

His voice broke, his face, white and ghastly, looked back 
at the stern, cold face of Mandhar Ram. “ I know what you 
would ask,” he said brokenly, disjointedly. “ I remembered 
too late your warnings. The whole evil force within me 
spent itself on that curse, on that desire. Ere another day 
dawned, the woman who had tempted me was — dead” 
There was silence, utter stony silence. The old man 


AND WITH YOU— PEACE.’ 


101 


shuddered with horror. The calm face of Mandhar Ram 
grew chill and dark. The younger man sank slowly down 
at his feet, and hid his face on his clasped hands. 

“ Take back your gift,” he cried, in passionate entreaty. 
“ In all the life you granted there is but one bright hour — 
but one pure and perfect dream ; and the hour has faded 
into eternal night, and the dream has perished with the 
waking. Stained with sin, and cursed with evil, so I have 
come back from the world where you sent me — hateful in 
my own sight, weighted by memories that have not one 
redeeming virtue. Since I have learnt my fatal power, I 
am in terror of myself — of every passing feeling — of every 
possible passion. Who I am, I ask no longer; but — what 
I am — I abhor with mortal terror, and more than mortal 
hate ! ” 

“ You may well abhor it,” said Mandhar Ram gravely. 
“I, who have pitied you all your life, can only pity you 
still. The blame rests with your vain-glorious creator. He, 
in the pride and triumph of his heart, in the ardour of 
discovery, breathed back into your rescued body, that the 
waves had cast up at our feet, the vital spark that men call 
life. But he could not, with that physical life of which he 
had learnt the nature and the secret, give you also its higher 
principle — the one mysterious Divine spark which is the 
source of universal spirit, and leaves that source but to 
return to it again. In all respects you were human as 
Humanity, but with one strange exception — that with each 
seven years the vital current began to flow more weakly and 
feebly in your veins, and necessitated again the replenish- 
ment that had once restored it. With that need came 
always the desire to return here, no matter in what part of 
the world you might be. Had you not done so, you would 
have simply passed out of life in a trance of exhaustion.” 

Trevanion rose to his feet. He looked changed — worn 
— haggard, as if years of suffering and remorse had passed 
over his head. 

“ Then — if I did not return ? ” he said. 

“You would simply die the common death of 
humanity.” 

He stood for a moment silently regarding them both. 


102 # 


A VAGABOND LOVER. 


Then his eyes wandered round the room, that strange 
temple of science where his strange life had had its un- 
natural re-birth. 

Slowly he advanced to the scared and trembling figure 
crouched on the chair by the dull ashes of the dying fire. 

“ Between us,” he said, “ there is not much to say. You 
best know whether your motives deserve praise, or blame. 
I am only — their result ! A few years longer I must bear 
the burden with which you have cursed me. ... You need 
not fear that I shall ever return again to seek, from your 
hands, its renewal.” 

He laid his lips, with a sudden impulse of tenderness, on 
the white head bowed before him in the abject repentance 
of age that knows itself helpless, then turned to Mandhar 
Ram and held out his hand to him. 

“ Whither would you go ? ” asked the Oriental gravely. 
“ At least stay here till the storm has spent itself.” 

The young man shook his head. “ Out of the storm I 
came,” he said, “ it is fitting that I should return to it. 
Peace be with you, Mandhar Ram. You, at least, have 
always been friend and counsellor to me.” 

The Oriental bent his stately head in the grave and 
formal salutation of his race. “ And with you — Peace,” he 
said. 

And with those words breathing their soft and kindly 
meaning over the passionate woe and warfare of his heart, 
Trevanion went out into the bleak and bitter night. 


THIS END 


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